


A Monster By Any Other Name: Part One

by Brosedshield, LaviniaLavender



Series: Freak Camp: A Monster By Any Other Name [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Forced Prostitution, Freak Camp 'verse, Gang Rape, Horror, M/M, Psychological Torture, Rape, Romance, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Coercion, Starvation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:46:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 115,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviniaLavender/pseuds/LaviniaLavender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The same old Sam/Dean love story, with a darkfic twist. Sam grows up in a concentration camp for monsters, and Dean is raised as an only child and a hunter. Together, they make each other human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Make sure you read the Prologue (Part 1 of the series) before starting this chapter!
> 
> Thank you, whereupon, for being the best beta we could hope for, and more. <3

Once, Rebecca Marlow had wanted a baby of her own more than anything.

As an unmarried woman in the 1980s who had no interest rutting with a man, this put her in a difficult situation. She couldn't afford intensive fertility treatments, and nothing else she could get her hands on worked.  Her sister Maggie urged her to adopt, but Rebecca wanted a child growing inside her, wanted to feel it kicking and moving, wanted the blood and pain of childbirth to know that child was hers, forever.  She wanted it more than sex, more than a lover, more than she wanted to successfully run her own coffeeshop.  It was all she could think about, and she began to believe she'd do anything to get pregnant.

So it wasn't too surprising, in the end, that she crawled back to her old perverse fascination with the occult. In her teens, and for a few hectic semesters of college, she had dallied with the incantations and the ritual—just long enough to be frightened and intrigued by what a few words and herbs could offer a person willing to go the distance. She'd continued with the occasional ritual even into her late twenties, but burned everything after the White House Massacre, terrified of the consequences if anyone had even gotten a hint about her fascination. She had watched people who had touched the supernatural less than she beaten, ostracized and deported, and more than once thanked any power listening that anyone who had known about her obsession had not followed her from Oklahoma State back to her hometown of Tulsa.

But eventually, as her desire for a child grew and the fervor died down, Rebecca couldn't quite step away from the old call. Certainly, the Campbells were still successfully running the Facility, capturing and containing monsters, but the average public was less aware—or ready to attack—the monsters in their midst. Rebecca figured she could find what she needed with minimal risk.  

But genuine fertility rites were hard to come across. She'd never noticed how few traditional witchcraft spells—at least the ones she was willing to try, as she drew the line at anything that required a human sacrifice or something she could not safely get without setting off all kinds of red flags—offered safe, reliable pregnancy. But she kept looking, each time a new spell amounted to nothing, and what she learned in the meantime was deeply, temptingly practical. And the second she started again, even to dip her fingertips in the deep pools of power, she could feel the old addictive allure of it coming back to her, running under her fingers, the heady knowledge of what she could tap into with a few generic ingredients and whispered words.  Rebecca had a knack for it like she'd had for few things in her life, and it was difficult, after that first sip, not to start drinking the power down. She remembered what it had been like in college, what the power felt like, and it became very hard stop. And, on many levels, she didn't want to.

With more knowledge came contacts, contacts who were walking examples of the profit that could come to someone willing to lay basic hexes. They wore expensive suits and never had to worry about their insurance payments. And when they smiled, Rebecca could see the shark-toothed promise of what playing the dangerous game could give her. That's where the money was, not in any good-fortune crap, but for the bitter and desperate looking to inflict their own pain on whoever they thought deserved it.  People were willing to pay—and pay well—to make others hurt.

Rebecca knew it was dangerous, of course, these sorts of transactions with strangers, but at last she had the means to affording the treatment that would let her carry a child. She had a gift, she told herself, and it would be a waste not to use it, not after she'd come this far. So she dealt in desperation and vengeance, collecting dirty money - though never blood money, she was careful not to get in that deep - from anonymous sources.

And she was good. Her hexes always stuck, and she never promised anything that she couldn't deliver. In certain circles, everyone knew that Rebecca Marlow was reliable and willing.

Eventually she started working for politicians who had the ready cash to purchase an extra bit of polish and shine for themselves and kick bad luck and dirt on their opponents.  Rebecca smiled at them, took their money, her shark-toothed smiled clean and honest, but beneath it she despised them all. They were so petty, so self-obsessed, rotten with a hypocrisy that went from just under their skin down to the bones. As time went on, she cared less and less what she was casting. They all deserved it anyway. She was just a well-paid medium for other people's malice.  She wasn't the one with evil intentions; her only crime was capitalism.

Arrogance crept up on her, and with it came recklessness, and one day she walked into a trap. The client had set up the usual private room that contained all the ingredients she didn't dare carry with her.  No one was in the basic, dirty room with a single bed, but it wasn't uncommon for her to just come, pick up the cash and perform the ritual. The client would supply the hair or personal items for a curse, or pick up and plant the hex bags after she had left.

She had just begun calling on the usual names, reaching for the knife with one hand and the flame with the other when when the door burst in, and she found herself lying on her stomach, handcuffs snapped over her wrists, men shouting about exactly how few rights she had.

Later, looking back obsessively to that do to see what she had done wrong, she realized that there had been no warning signs, no details that were off. She had just taken one too many jobs and someone had put the pieces together.

The the judicial procress went with the usual speed for a witch: a closed hearing to consider the evidence, no jury, and that same night she found herself trundled into a van for deportation to Nevada, clasping her shaking hands together and acutely aware these were the last hours she would be able to do so.

A great deal of the blind terror which had suffocated her since her arrest—and through the long, sleepless hours of trial and transportation—bled out after they sawed off her right hand.  After that, there was nothing left to hope for.  She had endured the punishment that had always hung over her head, and it was like the addiction to magic that had ridden her had been purged and seared away with the hot iron against the stump. Yes, she knew the worst was not over—no, she had only just arrived in hell—but now all she had left to do was bear it.  In some ways, it was a relief not to be contantly afraid of discovery or betrayal, always wondering if this was the spell or the client that would end her.  The day she was incarcerated, right before they amputated her hand, they informed her that her execution would take place in two to three years. 

At first she couldn't stop trembling when she thought of it—though that might have been the blood loss as well—but after two weeks in Freak Camp, the assurance of a certain end became the best comfort she had. 

She had known camp life wouldn't be pleasant, but nothing had prepared her for the daily nightmare, the new lessons in humiliation and degradation. The camp had changed fundamentally from how it was first portayed when Nancy Reagan entered as its first inmate.  The guards were nasty pieces of work, and there was no court of appeal for monsters.  No one cared.  She had forfeited her humanity, and the concept of "inhuman treatment" didn't exist inside the complex.  Rebecca could still remember, with bitter irony, the wave of anger and panic that swept the country five years ago after the attacks on the Reagans, how a middle-aged mother beat to death a supposed shapeshifter with her purse in a mall and no one moved to stop her.  They believed she and all the other monsters deserved this.  And as far as everyone who had once loved her was concerned—like her sister Maggie, or the few friendships that had outlasted her obsessions—she was already dead. No civilian visitors were allowed in Freak Camp.

But not quite two months after she arrived—when she began to wonder if she would last until her execution date or if she should want to—everything changed.  A new shipment of monsters arrived, including a little boy—maybe five years old—one of the youngest she had seen behind these fences.  His look of wide-eyed innocence, complete with touseled sandy hair, was completely at odds with the stark characters tattooed on the delicate skin over his collarbone.  He was still crying from the pain, tugging at the new collar bound around his neck, when she found him curled in a cot much too long for him, muffling his cries in the completely inadequate, stained blanket. He already sported a blackened eye, though whether it was from the trip or the unloading process, she didn't know.

Rebecca had had handfuls of her hair ripped out, been forced to bend over in front of a roomful of monsters as a guard took her, but her heart broke in a wholly new way as she pulled the boy to her in the dark barracks.  She kept her stub of an arm out of sight and rubbed his back with her remaining hand, shushing him until he quieted, then asked his name.

"Sam," he whispered, and wrapped his arms around her neck, hanging on tight.

It was then she realized that witchcraft had brought her a child after all.

Sam was a gift, though a bittersweet one.  A child his age should have been anywhere but Freak Camp, and she felt sick when she thought of the cruelty in store for him. She, at least, had knowingly broken the law, taken the risks; Sam and the other children who were born with strange abilities or been victims of attacks hadn't done anything to deserve this life.  

But now she had a focus, a reason to be thankful she had been stupid and gotten caught.  This was what she had wanted so badly, and though Sam had not been born to her, she had paid for him in pain and blood, and she was the only thing he had. He would never see his real, human family again. And if he was going to live to see his next birthday, he needed her.

Everything she had once dreamed of doing for a child of her own was impossible here.  No shopping for clothes as he grew, no enrolling him in swimming lessons and soccer leagues. She couldn't even plan on helping him through adolescence.  She had two years to do everything she could for Sam, to ensure he lasted longer than she would.

But even while she bargained and fought for the best food she could get for Sam, and watched him scarf it down and turn to her with wide eyes to ask for more, she couldn't escape the feeling that if she really cared for him, she would be negotiating for a lethal dose of morphine instead.  One quick injection would be Sam's ticket out of the camp, the only possible escape besides Special Research and the incinerator.  She would be saving him years of pain and abuse, of growing up to be the guards' plaything, punching bag, and worse.

But every time she thought of ending it, even gently pushing her folded blanket down over his face while he slept, holding it hard until he moved no more, she knew that she couldn't do it. It might have been the most selfish choice she had ever made, but she could not kill her child, could not take the one bright piece of joy and love out of her life. Unable to make the truly merciful choice, she went for the second best option by trying to equip Sam to survive the best he could in the very worst circumstances. Which was every day of Freak Camp.

So she taught Sam to keep quiet, to obey quickly and without questions, to avoid attracting attention.  She taught him not to run to her or hug her in public, not to show what he wanted, not to want.  He was a monster, she told him, and this is how monsters are treated.  There was nothing he or anyone else could do to change it.

She could tell he was a smart child, a good boy.  He listened and though he didn't understand at first, the lessons sunk in.  He used what she taught him, and it helped, it made life a little easier for them.  That was all Rebecca had to console herself that now, finally, she mattered.  She didn't feel the need to atone for what she'd done, all the curses she'd cast, but she was glad that at last in her life, she was doing some good.

She tried to protect Sam  in every way she could, and most of the time that involved expecting and being prepared for the worst. When he had food, she warned him there might not be much more. When the guards ignored him for a few days, she reminded him that he might get a beating tomorrow for nothing more than looking at them wrong. When the weather was actually bearable, she reminded him that in the night it would be too cold, that the next day it could be too hot.

She tried to train him not to have expectations, because then he wouldn't be broken when they were stripped away one by one. She taught him to fear everything, to accept fear as an everyday condition, and how when the things he feared came to pass, to make them not matter.

And somehow she kept him alive and as healthy as it was possible to be in Freak Camp, even when there was not enough food to go around, even when that hunter's kid started talking to Sam whenever his father came to participate in an interrogation.

Of all the many threats facing them every day, that one terrified her the most, because attention from hunters—whether they be grown sadists like Victor or baby-hunters like Winchester's son—meant no good for her or Sam.

Sam believed it all, that the world could always get worse, but she never quite managed to get him to fear the other boy, who could have had him whipped or killed at a word. She just kept watching over Sam and hoping that the one other child he interacted with on a regular basis wouldn't be the thing that broke him. She hoped that it would be something else, and not his friend; but other than telling him again and again that Dean couldn't actually want much from him, that he couldn't push it or assume they were friends, there was nothing that she could do.

Two and a half years went by quickly, with someone to care for and focus on, and one day Al pulled her aside and smiled nastily down at her. Rebecca braced herself, expecting a beating or maybe an offer that would make her sick—though she would do it, if it would get her food for Sam.

"Hey Handy," Al said. "You're not going to be around to play any more. We've only got you for one more month and then you're off to Special Research. Better get your kicks in while you can. They're not as nice as we are here."

Then he pushed her away, laughing, and she stared at his reteating back, frozen, horrified, no longer caring that she showed it. She had known this day was coming, but it was easy to lose track of days and months when they were really just another blowjob for an extra dinner portion, another growth spurt for Sam, another round of imported monsters. Even with time to prepare, she couldn't remain composed after the news, not after hearing so much about Special Research. But the worst part, always the worst part, was the thought of what would happen to Sam without her.

She'd been warning Sam from the first day that she wouldn't be there forever, that she would have to go away. She'd never been able to stop herself from saying that she would always love him, that she would watch over him from wherever she went, even if that might have been the biggest lie she'd ever told. Three weeks to go, she gathered her strength to tell him that the time had come.  It would be the last opportunity she'd have to give him what he needed to survive.

Sam had been doing such a good job, hadn't cried in so long, but when she told him she was going away, tears filled his eyes, and he rubbed them away with his knuckles.

"I don't w-w-want you to go..."

"Shhhh."  She pressed her finger gently to his lips.  "Remember, you can't use that word.  We don't get to want things."

Sam sniffed and nodded.

Rebecca stroked his hair, still soft despite the harsh soaps, and continued in a soft, soothing tone.  "Death is a wonderful thing, Sam.  Don't ever be afraid of it.  It means getting out of here.  And I don't want to leave you, my baby" - endearments were risky, too much love which would only hurt him later when they were gone, but she was too weak to give them up - "I don't want to leave you here, not at all, but I don't have a choice.  They say it's time for me to go."

Sam started to cry, but quietly, and she pulled him to her chest, closing her eyes and allowing herself to feel his weight and warmth.  She wouldn't be able to feel him against like this her many more times, his head falling against her chest, her arms wrapping around him giving them both the illusion that she could protect him. Maybe if she could remember this moment, this sweetness, she would be able to die remembering that at least something in her life had been worth it.

"Be happy for me," she whispered in his ear.  "Smile when you think of me, because I won't be here anymore.  I'll somewhere much much better, and one day you'll see me again, when you leave here too.  I'll see you again, I promise.  But in the meantime you have to be strong and remember everything I told you." 

Rebecca wasn't actually certain of heaven or if she would go there, after all she'd done, but she was sure Sam had nothing to worry about.  A few lies now wouldn't hurt, not if it would help him after she'd gone.

When the last day came, there were no goodbyes.  They had just finished breakfast - toast and a runny gray substance she thought was supposed to resemble porridge - and she had nudged Sam to the yard with the other young children where he would learn to read—the Directors of the camp though that the children might still be young enough to be useful—telling him to behave and she would see him at lunch.  She had barely turned from him when Bernard clamped his hand around her wrist, grinning at her in a way she associated with the very worst days, and then snapped the red chain and leather leash to her collar.

"Today's the day, lucky bitch," he said, and yanked her viciously forward.  "Now the real fun starts."

Rebecca fell forward to her knees, unable to catch herself from the most standard of assaults when all the strength had been wiped out of her legs, and had to be hauled up again by the leash.  She had promised herself she would keep it together until she went through the gate to Special Research, but as she stared up through blurry eyes at her last glimpse of sky and felt wetness trickle down her thighs, all she could pray for was Sam to be out of sight when she crossed the yard to her death.

~*~

John Winchester had no trouble signing into Freak Camp with his ten-year-old son in toe. He was a legend, a man who—alone, with an ax— went after monsters that other hunters tackled in groups, armed with machine guns. If he said that young Dean could handle himself surrounded by the all-too-human monsters, then no one else was going to critique his judgment or his parenting choices.

On his part, Dean Winchester was glad to be with his Dad, any time. It was only in the last few years that John had begun letting him participate in hunts, guard the Impala while he went after vamps, and not leaving him alone in the hotel, or with friends. Now he was at  _Freak Camp_  and ready to see the real monsters in the light of day and not at midnight in a broken-down house.

John Winchester followed the guide between the shapeless barracks buildings on his way toward Special Research. He looked neither to the left nor the right, and barely noticed his son tagging along behind. His face was focused, dangerous, and more than one monster—digging trenches for new fencing or white washing the blank walls—looked away quickly as he walked past. Easy to see the obsession, the focus, and the rage just under his surface.

Compared to that, little Dean was easy to miss, even though the sight of a child walking easy, fearlessly along the dirt paths usually tread by terrified monsters or confident hunters, was deeply unusual.

Right outside the chained, electrified gate of Special Research, the guide realized that there were two people following him, not just one.

He nodded at Dean. "Maybe the kid should wait out here."

John frowned at him, as though the words didn't make sense at first. And then he glanced down quickly at Dean, just then noticing that his son wasn't waiting outside in the Impala. "Yes. Thank you. Dean, I need you to stay out here."

Dean stared, the beginning of protest growing on his face. "But, Dad I want—"

"No Dean, not today."

Dean stopped. It was clear on his face, how much he trusted his father to know what to do, to have made the right choice. He sighed, not happy, but knowing that if his Dad said, "Not today," that meant that he would know when Dean was ready to really, truly join him in his fight, to be a full partner in the hunt. "Yes, sir."

A smile cracked John's face, and he ruffled Dean's hair. "That's my boy. I'll be gone..." the smile dropped away and he turned to the guide with a question in his face. "How long do these things usually take?"

"It depends, sir, on how hard—" the guide glanced down at the kid, and changed whatever he was going to say, "Depends, sir. Anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours."

John nodded. "Good to know." To his son: "Dean, I'll be back in about two hours."

Dean nodded. "Yes, sir."

Winchester glanced at the guide again. "Watch him for me?"

The guard blinked and looked uncomfortable. He was at ease beating the shit out of a monster or lighting one on fire, but watching a child was well beyond his usual skill set. "Sir, I don't know that that's a good—"

"Dean knows not to poke at the monsters, just make sure he knows where he shouldn't be." John's mouth quirked again. "My boy's no idiot, just...you keep your distance, Dean. They may look human, but remember what they are. I don't want you doing anything stupid, you hear me, son?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Daaaad."

"I'll be back out in two hours."

Dean nodded. "I'll be here, sir."

"Good." Without a backward glance, John Winchester stepped up to the gate to Special Research and passed inside.

Suddenly Dean was left on his own, with nothing but a guide that eyed him warily, like he had never seen a hunter before.

Or maybe, Dean thought proudly, he'd just never seen a Winchester before.

The guard stayed to make sure the Special Research gate closed behind John Winchester before turning to the boy. Dean had turned to look at the adult when he realized that he was being watched. They stared at each other, Dean with the bold confidence of a child who knew that he can bullshit with the best of them—and not get in trouble for it if he doesn't get caught—and the guard with the nervous uncertainty of a man who has no idea how to address a ten-year-old.

Finally, the guard cleared his throat. "So, kid—"

"Dean," Dean corrected. "My name is Dean."

"Yeah, okay. So Dean, what are you interested in?"

Dean gave the hunter a scornful look and touched the knife in his belt. "I'm a hunter. What do you think I'm interested in?"

The guard got a sly look on his face, glanced quickly after where John had disappeared, and looked back at Dean. In a lowered voice he asked, "Wanna see the baby monsters?"

Dean brightened.  "Sure! Wait, I didn't think that monsters were babies, I thought they were always just adults or dead people that were killing people."

"Oh yeah, there's baby monsters. And they're just as fu—messed up as the big scary monsters. All right, this way." 

The guard led him back down the path, cutting across the yard of packed earth that had a pair of posts with manacles attached to them, to a fenced-in area with barbed wire across the top and a small house in the middle. It looked like an old-fashioned school house, like they had in some of the towns that Dean and his Dad had been to hunt ghosts and Old World gods. And in the yard, chasing each other in small circles or walking around slowly, were children, ranging from younger than Dean all the way up to the their early teens.

Dean stopped, staring at the huddled children scattered across the yard and feeling distinctly disappointed.  They looked so ordinary, nothing different from kids he saw on playgrounds outside the various schools he had attended .  He looked up skeptically.  "These are monsters?"

Adults had tried to jerk him around in the past, and he liked to make it very clear that he wouldn't put up with crap from anyone, even if they were older than him. The only adult he trusted implicitly was Dad, because Dad always knew best. 

But the guard looked sincere, though amused, more like he was helping a fellow hunter correct his horrible ignorance rather than messing with a stupid kid. He nodded.  "Don't be fooled because they look so weak and innocent.  Didn't your dad teach you how monsters often appear just like us?"

Dean drew himself up straight.  "'Course he did.  He taught me everything.  I just thought you'd have them better tied up or something." He hadn't actually thought that at first. He had thought they just looked like kids. But he wasn't about to admit that to a man who dealt with monsters every day.

The guard chuckled.  "No need for that, they're very well trained.  You got nothing to worry about. You could even walk in and poke at them and they wouldn't even snap back." He mimed hitting someone in the ribs with his billy club, and grinned.

Dean gaped. "Seriously?" If someone poked him, he'd do his best to break their fingers. He'd have thought that monsters would be even more violent, aggressive, unable to control their monster-ness.

The guard waved him on.  "Don't believe me? Go ahead, try it." His tone added  _I dare you_ , but in a friendly, easy way. Dean knew that the hunter might doubt his ability, but he wouldn't want him to go into any kind of real danger. After all, if this man let Dean get hurt, then he would have to answer to John Winchester, and Dean knew—like he knew the sound of the Impala, shotgun recoil and the smell of burning bones—that Dad would crush anyone who ever hurt him.

Dean walked forward, neither slow nor fast, and the guard opened the gate for him. It was a simple chainlinked fence, something that Dean could probably have kicked down if he put his mind to it, but it served to show where the realm of the real humans ended and the world of the monsters began. He walked with his head high and hands open—completely confident, ready to draw his knife at a moment's notice—like Dad walked. Dean knew he was a hunter, even if he was still young, and no monster had better underestimate him. 

But the monster kids didn't seem that interested.  A couple glanced up at him, eyes flickering over his hands and his weapons before moving away from him, but mostly they kept their eyes down to the ground. He saw kid vampires—some of them probably centuries old—with skin flaking from the constant, unforgiving Nevada sunlight, pupils sunk to pinpricks, iron muzzles like supersized braces barely letting them open their mouths. He noticed shapeshifters—with the telltale bright green tags flapping from their arms; psychics—with a "P" brand over their temples to indicate the danger; even two werewolves with silver buckles on their collars. Everywhere he looked he saw the same kind of monster that he and Dad fought, that he and Dad had killed. They were sad, mangled creatures, but looking into their eyes he still saw the danger in them. He could feel eyes on his throat, his gun, his head, even though when he turned around no one was looking at him, no one meeting his eyes.

It was a weird feeling, it made Dean twitch, but it settled him too. He had seen all these monsters and knew how to fight them. And he could, because he was a hunter. None of them was going to take him by surprise today, not like Mom had been taken away.

Then one kid in a corner glanced at him, barely, just a move of his eyes, and Dean was confused. He couldn't tell what kind of monster he was. He looked so...ordinary. He was maybe six years old, with short sandy hair and skin darkened by the sun. He was so thin that Dean could have picked him up with no problems, and his grey camp clothes hung off him like he had gotten the shirt and pants of a much bigger child. He didn't have the tags, or the muzzle, or the brand. He didn't have anything that would tell Dean what he was.

That alone wouldn't have been so unusual—there were a couple other monster kids that also had no distinguishing marks—but the thing that made Dean hesitate, that kept him from just classifying him as a threat, was the fact that when he looked at the boy, Dean couldn't see any kind of threat in him. He saw none of the hatred that was so evident in the other monsters' faces, even though they tried to hide it.

Dean glanced back at the guard, wanting to ask what was different about the little kid, but the second he looked back he didn't really think that he could ask that. The guy was grinning at him, and mimed poking again with the club. The look on his face was just a little bit nasty, like the guy was daring him to do something stupid.

But Dean had never been afraid of a dare.

He marched over to the kid, stopped a couple feet away, and then glanced back at the guard. Then he looked at the younger boy, who was hunching in on himself, carefully not looking at him. Dean reached out and poked him twice with his finger.

The kid tensed, his shoulders rounding a little more, but when nothing else happened, when Dean just stood there and watched for his reaction, he looked up in surprise. He had bright, clear hazel eyes, like some kind of startled bird.

Dean and the monster stared at each other for a second before the monster seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped his eyes.

Dean felt awkward. He was always awkward when he actually wanted to talk to other people. He was fine with a cover story—like Dad always gave him when they went to a new town, a new school, along with the new name and the new reason Mom wasn't with them—but he had trouble just being himself.

"So," he said, and stuck his hands on his hips. "What kind of monster are you?"

The kid looked up, then back down again quickly.  "Unidentified, sir."

Dean frowned.  "I'm not sir.  Sir's my dad.  You can call me Dean."

The monster-boy raised his eyes, blinking at him."Dean," he said, and then ducked his head. Dean wasn't sure, but he may have caught the edge of a smile before his head went too low for him to see. "Yes, s—Dean."

Dean felt like the kid didn't quite get it. Like he thought that Dean was just another substitute for sir. And that was not correct at all. "Dean," he persisted. "It's my name. What's your name?"

The monster took a quick breath and puts his hands straight at his sides."Eighty-eight U I six seven zero three," he said, rapid and flat.

Dean frowned again.  "That can't be your  _name_. That's a number. What do people call you?"

His eyes flickered up again, and he hesitated before answering, "Sam.  Becca calls me Sammy, sometimes."

If Dean didn't know better, he'd have thought that the monster boy was shy. And it was weird even thinking of him as "monster boy" because he seemed like any other kid. Nicer than any other kid, actually. Other kids usually didn't stick around this long just talking to him. They wanted to know how he fit in the food chain at whatever new school or town he was at and that was it. Dean spent half of every first week—and there often wasn't a second week, if Dad managed to piss someone off, or the job got done—proving that he was at the top, untouchable, in whatever social order had developed.

  But it looked like Sam was going to stick around, even after figuring out where they stood.

"Sammy," Dean repeated.  It was a strange name for a monster.  "So, you're unidentified?  What does that mean?" He reminded himself that he wasn't talking to a kid. He was talking to a monster. Sammy had probably done something horrible, eaten someone's dog or something. They didn't just lock little kids up in Freak Camp because someone pointed at them and said they were a monster, did they?

"They don't know what kind of monster I am yet."

"But what did you  _do_?" Dean leaned forward.  "All monsters do something, have some kind of ability."

Sam shrugged his small shoulders, eyes back on the ground.  "I don't remember."

Maybe it had been so horrible that Sam couldn't even remember what it was. Dean let his ten-year-old brain play out wild fantasies, covered in blood and screaming. But every time that he tried to put Sam in the middle of one, everything shut down. It was just impossible to imagine this shy jumpy kid doing anything that Dean would normally associate with a monster. And it didn't help that the longer he didn't say anything, the smaller and more dejected Sam became, like the conversation had been as cool and unusual to him as it had been to Dean.

  "Don't worry about it," Dean said. "It's fine if you don't remember. Do you have a lot of friends? I mean, monster friends?"

  Sam shook his head. "I have Becca. But a lot of the others... We're all freaks but I'm  _really_..." he trailed away and shrugged. "Becca says they don't know what to make of me. Are you a hunter?"

  Dean puffed his chest out and put his hand on his knife, which just made Sam cringe back, ducking his eyes lower. Which completely changed what Dean had been going to say. "Of course I...hey, wait, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. I mean, you're a contained monster, right?"

  Sam nodded.

  "And you don't want to hurt anyone, right?" Sam nodded again, so hard and fast that Dean could see the collar around his throat rubbing up over his ear.

  "So we're good. Wanna sit down?" There he went again, saying something totally ordinary that filled Sam's eyes with surprise and a hint of wonder.   

  Dean thought that he was a pretty cool kid, but that was an opinion shared mainly by himself and no one else. But every time that he said something that was even moderately nice, every time that he seemed to treat Sam more like a human being than a monster, he would get one of those looks that made him want to keep saying nice things, keep doing nice things for Sam. Dean glanced back at the guard, but the man was barely paying attention to what he did, eyes much more focused on a pair of monster in a corner, a boy and a girl, that were standing really close to each other. 

  "Yeah," Dean said again. "Let's sit down." That look on Sam's face caused some pretty awesome feelings.  

"What do you do all day here?" Dean asked when they were settled against a wall, still in sight of the guard but far enough away that the man couldn't listen in on their conversation.  "Do you have to learn and stuff, or do you just walk around all day and, like, play cards and stuff?" 

  "I learn!" Sam sounded almost defensive. If someone could be defensive without raising their voice. "I can read anything."

  "Whoa, really." Dean wasn't a big reader. He  _could_  no problem, he wasn't an idiot or anything, but this kid looked like he would've been in first grade if he wasn't a monster, and Dean had a vague feeling that reading hadn't been his strong suit at that age,  _soooo_  long ago. "What kinds of stuff do you read?"

Sam told him, and it still sounded pretty impressive to Dean. Information on biology, geography, and folklore. General facts about history, as well as specific information on the horrors of the White House Massacre. Even a few things about animals. Sam had started cautiously, listing off books and what they were about in a dull monotone, but gradually, as Dean just sat there and listened, he started talking more rapidly, more eagerly, and Dean saw the cute, shy kid blossom into an eager, inquisitive boy, one that was more than happy to share his own enthusiasm about any subject that he touched on with Dean.

"And if I get  _really_  good," Sam said, kind of happy and breathless, "they'll let me go to the library and work on monster identification and reseach projects." He glanced at Dean, and he could almost see the smile in Sam's eyes, though it hadn't quite made it onto his face yet. "Libraries are full of  _books_ ," he said, as though that was a huge secret, one that shouldn't be passed around to too many different types of people.

Dean laughed. Honestly laughed. Sam looked nervous for a second, face shutting down, smile shuttering back beneath his face, but the happiness came back quickly. Dean wasn't laughing at  _him_ , but at the wonder that he was sitting down with a six-year-old, listening to him talk about books, and he wasn't actually bored out of his skull. Talking to Sam made him almost want to pick up a book, just to see what the kid was really talking about.

  "Could I get some of these books?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded somberly. "I'm sure you could, you're a hunter. Hunters get whatever they want. But..." he bit his lip. "If you take them away, then they won't be available for us. So if you could wait a little..." Sam abruptly looked horrified at what he had just said. "N-n-not that I'm t-t-telling you what to do, I'm just saying that I would m-m-miss them—do what you want. That's your right. I'm just a monster, please don't listen to me."

"Don't worry, Sammy, I'm not going to take your books. I'm sure that they have copies at some of the libraries I've been to." Though Dean wasn't sure of that at all. Some of the books that Sam had mentioned has been pretty obscure books about monsters and lore, and he wasn't actually sure that his standard middle school would carry them. But he wasn't going to tell that to Sam. When he had been talking about Dean taking away his books, he had been completely upset, like they were the only things in the world for him.

  Which was proven confirmed by his very next comment. "Other libraries?" He gaped. "You mean there's more than the one in Administration?"

"Sammy, there are  _hundreds_  of libraries," Dean said. "One in every school I've ever been to—and I've been to a lot of schools—and a few besides that."

Sam was awed. So Dean told him more about his last school, where he had hung out in the library just because the librarian was hot—in a sweet, sympathetic way—and he had read eight Goosebumps books just because there had been nothing much else to do. He had pretended that it was research, but honestly thought that most of the stories were unlikely to have ever really happened.

Sam paid rapt attention through the whole story, and at one point he tossed back his head, too amazed to sit still any longer. That's when Dean really noticed the collar.

"Does that hurt?" Dean asked, gesturing at the circle of stiff leather.

Sam glanced back at him, eyes huge, young, innocent. Dean didn't think monsters' eyes were supposed to look like that.   "Does what hurt?"

"That." Dean reached out but stopped before touching the leather. Sam hadn't reacted, just watched his hand. Dean could see the second he realized what Dean had meant.

"Oh."  He dropped his gaze and raised his hand, running a fingertip over the leather as thought to remind himself that it was there. "Sometimes. I've had it for a while, so I don't feel it much any more."

Dean frowned.  "Does it ever come off?"

Sam shook his head.

"Not even when you shower?  Or sleep?"

He shook his head again.

"Huh."  Dean picked at the ground, unsettled in a way he couldn't define.

"Dean!"

John stood on the other side of the yard, waiting for him.  Dean jumped to his feet, hastily brushing off his knees.  "Sorry, gotta go."

Sam looked up then, gazing straight into his eyes.  "Will you be back?"

Dean stopped, startled.  "Yeah," he said, with a rush of certainty.  "Yeah, I'll be back.  I'm old enough now, and Dad comes here pretty often when he has a project.  I'll come back and see you, Sammy."

For the first time, Sam smiled.  It was a small, hesitant thing that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but it made Dean feel oddly proud.

_"Dean!"_

Without another word, Dean turned and ran back to his father.

"Sorry, Dad," he said when he reached the gate, breathless from the surprise and short run. "I lost track of time. How did Special Research go?"

  Dad glanced at the guard, a trace of a frown on his face. The guard pretended to look anywhere but at the Winchesters.

  "Fine," John said. "It went fine. What were you doing talking with that monster?"

  Dean's mind shut off a little bit. He had no idea what he had been doing with Sam. But he had liked it, and it had filled up something inside him that he didn't know how to define. But there was no way in hell that he was telling Dad that. "I'm researching too," Dean said. "Getting to know monsters so that I can recognize them later, you know?"

  Dad frowned, but Dean could tell that his mind wasn't on their conversation, wasn't on the here and now. It was probably back with whatever he had been doing in Special Research, whatever new clue he had gotten into Mom's death. Dean didn't know why he was still obsessed with Mom's death. Sure, it still hurt Dean, still hurt like hell to think about how she wasn't there anymore and would never come back, but it had been most of his lifetime away, and everyone knew that the monster that had done it was dead. He understood hating the monsters, even, but he didn't know what Dad was trying so hard to find out from the various creatures inside Special Research.

  But he didn't need to know, he was confident about that. One day, Dad would know Dean was ready, and then he would trust him with everything, and they would hunt together and no one would be able to stop the Winchesters.

  Walking out of Freak Camp beside Dad, Dean acknowledged to himself that that day was probably a long time coming. But, he smiled as they reached the Impala and he climbed into the passenger seat: at least now when he was bored he could think about Sam.

~*~

“I met a real today!” Sam told Rebecca that night as they were curling up in the barracks. “He told me to call him Dean and he told me that there are  _hundreds_  of libraries. Can you believe that, Becca?”

  He tucked his head beneath her chin—the guards hadn’t said anything about them sharing a cot yet, at least nothing that meant that it would be safer for Sam farther away from her, as long as she kept making them happy—and Rebecca fought the way she automatically stiffened. No need to panic Sam yet, not if he was inexplicably going through an imaginary friend stage. What a laugh. An imaginary friend in a camp full of monsters that would as soon eat the boy as befriend him.

“Really?” she said, stroking his head, keeping her voice even. “Did you do what he told you? Did you make him angry in any way?” That was always the first concern. Would the guards be coming after him—them—later for some imaginary insult Sam had given to a fat bastard who expected every monster to crawl and beg and to anything he told him.

Sam nodded. “Of course I did what he said. I always do. But he didn’t really tell me to do anything, we just sat down…he said he would come again!”

“Shhhh, shhhhh,” she said, pulling him a little tighter. What were they doing to her child. What were the fucks doing to him now. “Did he…Sam, did he do anything to you? How old….” The only reals that Sam wouldn’t have recognized were hunters. And there was no way in hell that a hunter just wanted to befriend of a six-year-old monster. She knew what reals did to monsters, but she had thought that six would be too fucking young even for the bastard perverts.

“He’s older than me, but still a kid,” Sam said. “Kinda Shorthair’s age. How old’s she?”

“Shorthair?”

Sam thought for a second. “Nala,” he said, finally pulling out the actual name instead of the nickname. “Neera?”

Nala. Unlucky girl, bitten by a werewolf. Barely eleven. Rebecca doubted she would last long. She had only been at camp two months and she was already looking hollowed out and pale.

She let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Dean was just a child?” she asked. “Did you hear a last name, Sam? Did anyone mention his last name, like reals have?”

Sam thought. “After Dean’s dad called for him, one of the guards said, ‘That Winchester squirt’s a fearless little bastard’. So, maybe Winchester.”

Rebecca closed her eyes and pushed her face into the cot, glad for the darkness, glad that the guards weren’t here yet. Because even a second-class witch knew about the Winchesters. John Winchester was practically a legend among monsters, the threat mothers used to scare their children. In the camp, if monsters said that name, they damn well whispered it. You never could be sure that Winchester wasn't one of them, with his single-minded efficiency at killing and a hatred that ran that deep.

She used to think it funny, before Sam, that the monsters would attribute supernatural abilities to a hunter. That they would live in terror of some faceless force when they were surrounded every day by threats that had faces and names and cold fingers digging their way into her old bruises.

Now she understood. There was always more to be afraid of. And a fucking _Winchester_ had been talking to Sam, her Sam.

“He won’t come back,” she said, promising herself more than reassuring Sam. “He won’t come back, Sam. Try not to think about it. Don’t talk about it. Okay?”

“But he said he would,” Sam said, confused.

“Sam. Do what I say.”

He closed his mouth and rested his head next to her, silent for the rest of the night, even though she knew he was still thinking about it.

At least he still did what she said. That gave them both an illusion of safety. And Rebecca, with the name Winchester still hanging in her mind, needed every hint of safety that she could get.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time that Dean came to Freak Camp, it was something of a surprise. Dad had found a lead out on a hunt, found some monster that had let slip something that triggered the obsessive alarms in his head. John had carried Dean out of the hotel while he was still trying to wake up, and bundled him in the back seat while he laid out plans and notes and weapons in the front seat and hooked a trailer to the back.

Dean could have sworn he could hear clinking and whimpering noises coming out of the trailer all the way to Nevada.

This time Dean didn’t even have to walk with Dad through the front gates because John drove the Impala and the trailer straight through the big loading gates.

 _He must have used the portable phone while I was out_ , Dean thought, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt earlier.

While five or six adults swarmed around the trailer, moving something from the inside, arguing with Dad about where it should go and who had “first interrogation rights,” Dean grabbed a deck of cards and a jacket against the chilly morning air.

Dad remembered him, almost absently, as the rest of the people carried a well-wrapped stretcher out of the trailer and into the Special Research building.

“Dean,” he said, “I…don’t know when this will be done, or what I might be able to figure out, or even if these assholes are going to let me be present for the interrogation that I damn well let them have.” He shook his head. “Don’t fucking offer me a bounty and then say I can’t ask a few damn questions. They can keep their fucking money for all I care.”

Dean nodded. “I can hang out, Dad. Not a problem.”

“I won’t be long. I’ll try not to be long. You get into trouble, you give ‘em hell, understand Dean?”

Dean wasn’t exactly sure who he was supposed to give hell to—there were a lot of possibilies, ranging from uppity monsters to fucking Campbells, and various hunters and support personnel in between—but he nodded anyway. He assumed it would be clear at the time, if the situation came up. “Yes, sir!”

“Good boy,” Dad said, and then he was gone in the flurry. He hadn’t even closed up the Impala properly.

Dean took the keys out of the ignition and slammed the door shut, unlatched the trailer—he wondered where Dad had found it at such short notice, if he had stolen it, or actually bought it, or if it had belonged to the monster before he brought it down—and then went in search of Sam.

The dawn was just breaking over the edge of the distant mountains, and when Dean rounded the corner into the central yard of FREACS he had to stop dead. All the monsters were out of their barracks cells, standing shivering in the early morning light, some standing straight as rods, other hunched on themselves from various deformities. Dean watched, amazed, while the dozen or so guards standing around the monsters called out numbers from their yellow clip boards and then looked up to see where they were. Monster after monster called “present” after hearing their number. The guards patrolled, heavily armed, and would occasionally hit a monster that wasn’t fast enough about responding.

It was easy enough to find Sam, standing between a witch and a shapeshifter in the central row. He stared straight ahead, stiller than any kid Dean had ever seen.

The guard that had been holding the clip board suddenly snapped it down. “That’s it then. All you stupid fucks are still here, thank goodness, or we’d have to whip the skin off your monster asses again. No assembly today. Find your assigned section.”

The neat rows of monsters broke up, some going back toward the barracks, some moving in different directions according to assignments. Sam stayed where he was for a minute. Dean wondered if Sam had an “assigned section” or if this would be a decent time to say hi. He really hadn’t thought very carefully about what he was doing. He had just assumed that he would get to hang out with Sam when he came back, and it never occurred to him that maybe Sam would have other things that he would have to do. Though he guessed that maybe it should have occurred to him. Dean shouldn’t fool himself into believing that he was Sam’s whole world or anything.

Then Sam looked up, face expressionless. At least until he saw Dean.

Dean knew when Sam saw him because the younger boy froze, his face a study in shock, and then he completely transformed, everything from his expression to his posture. He straightened and started walking toward Dean, a kind of bounce in his step and a look in his eyes like he couldn’t quite believe that he was actually moving toward Dean.

He looked so excited that Dean felt the little knot of worry in his stomach uncoil and a warm feeling replace it. If Sam was excited too, that meant it was okay for Dean to be glad to see him again. Even if he was a monster.

"Hey Sammy," Dean said, leaning against a fencepost and flicking through the card stack with his thumb. "Told you I'd come back."

Sam lifted his head and _beamed_ at him, the biggest smile in the world, like Dean had just given him a million dollars. It was unnerving. Dean couldn't remember anyone looking at him like that before.

"Hi - hi Dean," Sam said, softly, like he'd almost forgotten how to say his name.

Dean smiled back and reached impulsively to rumple his hair. Sam ducked his head to the side, but not like he was trying to really get away. "C'mon, Sam, let's find somewhere out of this wind." Again, that flash of a smile, of restrained excitement in Sam’s face.

They headed around the corner of a building, close to the fence, where they were out of sight of nearly everyone, though Dean saw a security camera pointed in their direction. He didn't care about that, though. It made sense that they would want to keep visual track of their monsters even when there weren’t enough guards to keep an eye on all of them.

Sam crouched down, arms wrapped around his knees.

Dean slid down the wall until he was sitting next to him. It was cold against the poured concrete. He wondered if Sam was cold. “How’ve you been, Sammy?”

Sam blinked at him, confused, and then shrugged. “Good, I guess. H-how have you been?” He stumbled over the words, as though he wasn’t sure if he was saying them right.

Yeah, it was a stupid question, Dean decided, because he didn’t really have a good answer either. It was just him and Dad, traveling, like it always was. A few ghosts, and the mystery monster that had brought them here, were pretty much the only interesting things that had happened since last time he had seen Sam. He hadn’t even had much trouble at the last school he’d been at.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, hands moving with the cards again. “Hey, Sam, you want to play cards?”

Sammy turned his head, confused again. “I d-d-don’t know, Dean,” he said. “If you want to, of course I’ll…how do you play?”

Dean stopped moving the cards between his hands and stared. “I mean, it’s cards. Like, war or slap or seven-up or poker. I’m not that good at poker yet, but Dad’s started to teach me and….” He trailed away when Sam still looked lost. If anything he looked nervous, shifting back and forth a little bit. “You’ve never played cards before?”

Sam shook his head and if anything hunched farther over his knees, looking down at his toes like maybe they would teach him the mysteries of a straight flush.

“Hey, Sam, don’t worry, that’s cool. I mean, lots of kids don’t play card games.” Okay, so in Dean’s experience everyone knew at least one card came, at least War, at least _something_ , but he supposed that Sam couldn’t really hang out with other kids that much. He was technically a monster after all.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam said. “I’m really stupid sometimes.”

“Hey, that’s not true!” Sure, it was still hard to think that Sam wouldn’t have ever handled cards before, but to say that he was _stupid_ was just ridiculous. Because if there was anything that Sam was, it wasn’t stupid. Dean was pretty sure that this little kid, who had never been anywhere interesting in his life, knew a hell of a lot more about books and history than Dean did. “Come on, it’ll be really easy. You know numbers, right?”

Sam nodded quickly. “Of course, Dean. Becca—they taught us numbers at the same time as letters and reading.”

“Cool. And for War, that’s all you need.” Dean dealt out the cards—just splitting the deck would have been faster, but he wanted to be sure that they each had an even number. “We each get the same number of cards. We’ll each turn over one card, and whoever has the highest number gets both cards. If we get the same number, we have a war, where you lay down three cards, and then turn over the fourth, and whoever has the highest number then gets all the cards. Whoever gets all the cards in the deck wins. Got that, Sam?”

Sam swallowed nervously, eyes on the pile of cards in front of him. “Sure, Dean.”

They started slowly. The first couple times that a queen, jack or king got turned over Dean had to explain how those came over the tens.

On their second war, Sam turned over an ace at the end. He smiled and started to push all the cards toward Dean. He almost looked relieved, which was weird.

“No, you keep those,” Dean said. “You won that war, Sam.”

Sam froze. “But it’s a one,” he said.

“It’s an ace,” Dean corrected. “And it’s higher than anything else.”

“It’s a _one_ ,” Sam said. “That’s too many cards, Dean. I don’t need…” he waved his hand, which was already considerably thicker than Dean’s.

Dean snorted. “I mean, we don’t need the cards. It’s a game, Sam. I won’t be angry if you win, I promise. After all, somebody always wins.”

Sam looked down at his thick stack of cards, and he looked a little sick. “Yes, Dean.”

They played, the sizes of their decks varying wildly. Dean had forgotten how _long_ a game War was.

But when Sam took the last card, face blank and a little frightened, Dean lifted his hands and grinned at him. “Good game, Sam. You won, that rocks!” he said. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I won,” Sam said. “That’s means you…didn’t win. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t…” he waved at the ground between them, face pinched.

“Sam, I’m not going to get bent out of shape because you beat me in a card game,” Dean told him. He grinned. “I mean, that’s what happens in card games. I mean, especially War. It’s all chance. Now, poker…” he smirked, but when Sam looked even more worried, he dropped the smile. “Come on, Sam, that’s a joke too. I wouldn’t care even if you beat me in poker. Or anything.”

“But I’m a monster.”

Dean blinked, and had to stop himself from automatically saying that that was ridiculous, silly, what did that matter?

Because it _did_ matter. Monsters were dangerous, and letting your guard down around one got you dead, just like Mom.

He could almost hear Dad in his head, telling him he was being a damn fool for relaxing, even for a second around a monster. _They find your weak points and they rip them out,_ his voice growled through Dean’s head. _You can’t trust those sonofabitches for a second._

Dean reached slowly for the cards and Sam put them into his hands again, a little too quickly, like Sam didn’t want to be holding onto them ( _getting them filthy with monster germs_ ) any longer than Dean wanted him to.

Dean shuffled them slowly, thinking hard about monsters, what Dad would say, and Sam, while the cards flew into each other.

When he looked up he realized that Sam was staring in fascination at the deck.

He glanced up and caught Dean’s eyes, and a smile flickered across his face. And in that second he was just an amazed little boy. “That’s really awesome,” he said. “That…thing.” He gestured at the cards and mimed shuffling them. “What…how do you…is it a real thing?”

Dean frowned. “A real thing?”

“You know, a thing real humans can do that a monster couldn’t? I mean, like me. Could I do that?”

“Sure, Sam, give it a try.”

Dean watched Sam fumble at shuffling, gave him a few pointers eventually, until Sam could _almost_ do it, but nowhere near as fast as he could. Dean liked teaching him, and almost broke a rib holding back the laughter while he watched Sam painstakingly shuffle, the tip of his tongue sticking out one corner of his mouth while his small hands managed the big, worn cards.

At some point after Sam had really gotten the shuffling down, Dean had come to some kind of decision, even if he couldn’t have said what it was.

“Wanna learn poker?” he asked. “I’m not that good myself yet, but Dad’s been teaching me the rules.”

Sam looked worried. “You’re sure you won’t mind if I…don’t lose? I mean, you said you wouldn’t, but if I’m new at a game I won’t be able to figure out how to…”

“Sam, there is one thing I want you to never do,” Dean said.

Sam looked attentive. “What?”

“Let me win.” Dean grinned as he shuffled the cards together. “Because if you are good enough to make sure I win, then that just means that I’m that stupid and bad at the game. And that would just be embarrassing. Got that?”

“Yes, Dean.” Sam grinned. “You’re the best.”

By the time a guard came around the corner to tell him that John was waiting, Dean had successfully taught Sam War, slap, and what he knew about poker. He had a feeling he’d gone wrong somewhere with poker, but the result was still fun for both of them, and next time he saw Sam he knew he would be able to teach him the correct version. He’d make sure that Dad taught him the rest of the rules so that he and Sam could get better the next time.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Dad said, rubbing a hand over his face. He looked exhausted. That made sense. Dean had slept in the car on the drive over here, but that meant that Dad had been up for the last twenty-four hours or so. Dean was looking forward to when he got tall enough to help Dad with the driving. Maybe then Dad could get enough sleep to lose the dark circles that seemed permanently etched around his eyes. “You okay without me, kiddo?”

Dean smiled up at him. “Yes, sir. Me and…” he almost mentioned Sam, but stopped himself. Dad had been dealing with a lot of monsters today. He didn’t need to think about another one. And Dean had the whole thing with Sam under control. He wasn’t at all like other monsters. “I had a good time, sir. No problem.”

John nodded. “Good. Let’s get the f—the hell out of here.”

Dean followed him out. Right before he left the yard, he glanced back.

Sam was smiling at him. Dean just barely stopped himself from waving.

***

Dad wasn't finished with the monster he had brought in. He and Dean coasted around the northwestern states, taking care of a few rogue spirits, but every couple of weeks they turned back for northern Nevada. Dean didn't know what the deal was with the monster and he knew better than to think Dad would tell him about it, but from what Dad muttered under his breath during the long drives, he didn't trust the Campbells to handle it alone or share everything they found. That made sense, of course, and Dean didn't mind their frequent trips back to Freak Camp. The guards knew him now, knew to let him into the yard where he could always find Sam hanging around. They'd head to some deserted out-of-sight corner where Dean would pull out his card deck or some other miniature roadtrip game Dad had gotten him. Once he found a half-finished candy bar in his pocket and offered a bite to Sam, and his astonishment at the taste made Dean laugh. He couldn't believe the kid had _never_ had candy before, so he started bringing different kinds of sweets for Sam to try, whatever he could slip into his pockets.

He didn't talk much about Sam to Dad. Mostly because he knew exactly what Dad would say, and it wasn't anything that Dean didn't already know. Sam may have been a monster, but he was already in Freak Camp and he didn't have extra-sharp teeth or claws or any way of hurting him. Dean was pretty sure Sam wouldn't have tried to hurt him even if he had the chance, anyway. Sam always looked like Dean's arrival was the cherry on his sundae, the best thing that could have happened to him that week. Dean liked feeling important, like he mattered that much to someone, even if it was just to a monster kid. But he found it harder and harder to think of Sam as a monster - at least, not like the ones Dad killed. Sam was a different kind. He was just _Sam_ , and that was enough for Dean. He didn't think he'd be able to explain that to Dad, though.

That was also why he liked to take Sam somewhere without guards watching everything they did. It didn't matter if Dean and Sam were playing cards or eating Snickers bars, it wasn't any of their business—Dean was a hunter, so they should trust him and leave him alone. He felt a little possessive of these visits, and kind of about Sam too. Dean almost felt like Sam was his monster, and his alone, and it made him kind of angry to think that other people could mess with him whenever they wanted, or that the guards could hit him and hurt him if he disobeyed and stuff like that.

One early summer day, they sat against a wall of the barracks on the edge of the general area, as far as they could get from the guards' curious eyes, and passed a bag of chocolate-coated peanuts back and forth.

"So, this Becca chick, she's like your mom, right?" Dean said, dumping four or five peanuts into his mouth and then holding the bag out to Sam.

Sam never took the bag or was willing to grab more than one or two peanuts at a time, but at least he wasn't wincing and looking out for the guards every time Dean pushed the bag in his face. "Yeah. She takes care of me, she..." Sam shrugged, and put the candies in his mouth. "You must have a mom. What's she like?"

Dean looked away and tried to look casual. "She's perfect."

Sam just looked at him, his big brown eyes expectant, hopeful. He didn't really care, Dean knew, about details of his life, but he did seem to care that Dean was telling him these thing, that Dean cared enough about him to share. Dean stared at his left knee, where the jeans were starting to wear through, and waited for another question. But Sam waited, patient in a way that few people were in Dean's life, for the story. Dean could make up anything he wanted, and Sam would smile in that same way, the expression that seemed to come up all the way from his toes and seemed to only be for him.

Dean had used to wish he had a little brother, someone who would look up to him, who he could teach about hunting like Dad taught him. Someone who would trust him the way he trusted Dad, even when Dad was drunk, or angry, or left him with other adults for weeks a time. Before he grew up so much, he had wanted someone, someone he could play with while Dad was away. He was almost a grown-up now, and he knew he didn't really need friends and that playing was _stupid_ , but it would still be nice to have _someone_. Of course, Sam was a monster, and couldn't be his brother—and shouldn't be his friend either, Dean knew what Dad would say—but Dean still felt happiest when they could sit together and Sam would look at him like Dean was made of all the pie in the world. Sam would have believed anything Dean said, not because he was stupid, but because he trusted Dean that much.

And Dean couldn't lie to that. Even about Mom. "She's dead," he said, not looking up from his knee. "She was Mary, Campbell, Winchester." He always said her name that way, because every part was important. The name that was her, the name that was a hunter, and the name that made her theirs, his and Dad's, and no one else's. He said her name, always, like it was a chant that, said enough times, in the right way, would bring her back.

It hadn't yet.

He waited for the reaction. Everyone had a reaction. Either amazement - "Oh, you're _those_ Winchesters?" - or disappointment - "He's Mary's son?" - or some look, like with a mom who was a hero, a daughter of heroes, he should be something more, something better than he was. Someone she would never be there to teach him to be.

But Sam hadn't reacted. When the silence just stretched, Dean got up the courage to actually glance at Sam. He was staring at his knees too, though as far as Dean could tell the knees in his grey pants didn't even have beginning holes.

"I didn't mean to ask about something that..." Sam gestured vaguely into the air. He took a deep breath, still without looking at Dean. "My mom's going to be dead soon too," he offered. "She says that's how we leave camp, a good thing. So maybe Becca and your mom...maybe they'll be together."

Dean's head snapped around. "What do you mean, your mom's going to be dead soon?"

Sam hunched over and wouldn't look at him. "She's going to Special Research. Monsters don't come out of Special Research."

"Sam." Dean stared at him. He couldn't wrap his head around it—knowing that his mother was about to die and not doing something about it, not kicking and screaming and fighting every second of every moment to stop that horrible horrible thing. "Sam, I didn't know."

Sam glanced at him, and then away. "I mean, it's not a big deal, she's a monster. All monsters go there. Oh." In that second he seemed to realize what he'd said, eyes going wide, staring back at Dean. "I'm...stupid, she and your mom wouldn't be in the same place. I'm sorry I said that. I mean, I'm sure your mom was awesome."

Dean took a deep breath and scooted closer to Sam. He offered him the peanuts, and, after a hesitation, Sam took one. "She was awesome," he said. "She was a hero and she—" _killed monsters_ , "she loved me and she made pie, and when she was around" _Dad smiled, all the time, unless they were shouting at each other_ , "we were a family."

"That sounds awesome," Sam said, reaching for the bag and helping himself to another three or four candies. "What's pie?"

Dean was so excited at Sam actually _reaching_ for the food—he'd had this same fascinated feeling once when he'd gotten some birds at one of their apartments to come to the windowsill after he left food there every day for a week, marveling at the idea that something so skittish and wild would trust him that much—that he could shove memories of Mom back where they belonged, far enough away that they didn't make him feel so much like punching someone, and focus wholeheartedly on Sam's horrifying lack of basic knowledge.

Dean launched on a fifteen-minute monologue in praise and description of pie, complete with hand motions, eating sounds, and recommendations for the best pie in the continental United States. And the whole time he talked, Sam watched him like he was the only thing he wanted in the world. Which was ridiculous, because any sane person should also want pie.

"That's it, dude," Dean said at the end, when Sam seemed no closer to believing him. "Even monsters should know about pie. Next time I come, I'll bring you some."

Sam crunched the last candy. "No such thing," he said, with a glow in his eyes another child might get being told to believe in fairies or the pot at the end of the rainbow. "Not here."

"Hey!" Dean grabbed Sam's face and made him look at him. "If I say I'm bringing you pie, I'm bringing you pie. That's a promise."

Then he caught sight of Dad walking around the perimeter of the yard, from whatever area he had been working in, and sighed a little as he stood up. Time to go, before one of those jerks came over. But he turned back to Sam for a second, sliding the crumpled peanuts bag into his jeans pocket. "Hey Sam," he said. "It would be cool if our moms were together. Just like it's cool when we're together. You know?"

Sam nodded, really fast and smiling up at him like the little brother he had never had, someone who trusted him and liked him and listened.

Dean couldn't stop smiling, even when Dad glared at him, until they were out of camp and back at the Impala.

***

The next time Dean went to Freak Camp, he tried to bring a pie.

It was cherry, with an extra layer of glazed crystalline sugar on the top, and pretty cheap, but it was small enough that he could wedge it into his pants by the small of his back—where Dad kept his gun--and walk without anyone noticing the bulge.

It didn't occur to him that the cheap pie tin would show up in a metal detector until it went off. Weapons were allowed in the camp, but you had to take them all off and send them through the X-ray machine.

His cousin Lucas Campbell patted him down and brought out the pie. Laughing, he sniffed it and then raised the pastry on high like a trophy. "Behold!" he bellowed. "Dean Winchester is bringing a little cherry into Freak Camp!"

The other guards, who had been watching the alarm, warily broke into grins and chuckles.

Lucas looked at Dean and made his eyes go big and innocent. "Does your father know, Dean?"

"Shut up, Lucas," John said tiredly.

Dean glared, perfectly aware that he was being made fun of and _blushing_ , but much more focused on the pie that he somehow had to get to Sam. "I get hungry," he said, ignoring the snickers across the room. He turned to John, and stuck out his jaw. "You're gone so long, and I get hungry, and there's nothing decent to eat in the camp, so, yeah, I brought a pie. Sue me."

"He can't bring the tin in, Winchester," Lucas said. "I mean, we do a lot to these fucks, but giving them a pie in the face? Inhuman, man."

John walked over to the other hunter, and pulled the pie out of his hands hard enough that Lucas almost fell over, and John made no move to balance him. He continued glaring down at the other man while extending the pie to Dean.

"Take what you want," he said. "Dump the rest."

"Yes, sir." Dean nodded, and scooped out two of the biggest pieces he could and put them into his pockets. He threw the rest of the tin in the industrial-sized trash can by the metal detector and ignored the wet, squishy sensation oozing down his legs as he followed his father into the camp.

Later, sharing the mostly pulped pie with Sam around an alley, Dean regaled him with the entire story, waving his cherry-stained hands in ways that made Sam grin like an idiot, and lamenting the unfairness of life. "Sorry it's squished," he said. "I had to think fast. Who'd have thought they'd be pie Nazis?"

Sam nodded mutely, his mouth full of pie. "You were right, Dean," he mumbled. "This is the best thing ever." He stopped and bunched his forehead in a way that Dean hard come to recognize as thinking very very hard. "Well, the second best," he said.

Dean was outraged. " _Second best,_ " he said. "What the hell's better than _pie_."

Sam swallowed and closed his eyes in bliss. "You bringing me pie. What's a Nazi?"

It took Dean a long, unusually silent minute to work his way through the first part of the sentence. In that time, Sam started to look worried again, and chewed more slowly. But Dean eventually just pulled him close and ruffled his really short hair. When Sam smiled again, Dean launched on a torturous and mostly wrong explanation about how the Nazis were people who didn't like pie because they had been able to drink nothing but German beer, which went horribly with everything but bar peanuts, and ended with a promise to bring him a book that had more details.

***

Later, in the Impala with Dad driving east trailing a lead that he had picked up in Special Reseach—South Dakota, Dean thought he had heard Dad mention to the guard when he had come to get him—Dean patted the pie residue in his pockets and couldn’t stop grinning. Sam had liked the pie, and he had actually managed to get it into the camp. Granted, it had almost gone wrong, but that was okay. Sometimes trial and error was necessary. That was why Dad always stuck around a few days after a ghost burning to make sure that they had gotten the right corpse, just in case.

“Why pie?” Dad asked eventually, when they were a good ten minutes out of Freak Camp. He had been staring into the approaching mountains with the particular tense, focused expression that Dean associated with a long day in Special Research.

“It’s really sweet, and good,” Dean said. “And cherry's the best.” _I promised Sam_ , he thought.

Dad’s hair was damp and slicked back, as though he had showered before he left Special Research, and there was red under his nails. He had been “looking for information” for over two hours this time, and while Dean didn’t mind having that much more time to spend with Sam—the guards didn’t make Sam go shower or do other things that monsters usually had to do, as long as Dean was with him—he still didn’t like to think about what that meant. Sam had said that monsters died in Special Research, and while he knew that Dad killed monsters and it had never bothered him before, suddenly the monsters in Special Research looked like Sam.

As though thinking about Sam and Dad in the same moment had connected them, Dad looked over, his brow furrowing slightly, his mouth twisting down in distaste. “You shared with that monster, didn’t you?”

Dad could find out if he really wanted to know. A couple questions to the guards that had passed by Dean and Sam a few times, and he would know pretty much everything they had done. There really wasn’t much of a point in trying to hide anything from Dad. He would find out in the end no matter what he did. Monsters everywhere had learned that they couldn’t do anything without John Winchester figuring out what they had done eventually. “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t like you hanging around with that monster boy so often,” John said. “Have the guards checked to make sure that he’s not some kind of siren or genie or anything like that?”

Dean didn’t know, but he assumed that they wouldn’t look so calm when Dean was hanging out with him if Sam was at all dangerous in a mental-manipulation sort of way. “I don’t think so, sir,” he said. “That is, I haven’t seen any signs. I don’t know that they’ve checked.”

“Damn stupid of them, if they haven’t checked,” he said. “I don’t know, Dean. It could be dangerous…”

“Come on, Dad!” Dean said, immediately nervous about where the conversation could be going. It had been a good day. Sam’s expression when he had seen the pie had been _perfect_. And now he could feel all the good feelings sliding away from him with these questions. Why did Dad always have to ask, always needling at what he and Sam had as though it was a bad thing that had to be examined minutely, that had to be carefully dissected just to make sure that it wasn’t poisonous. Why did he _always_ have to bring up the whole “Sam is a monster” thing? Sam didn’t seem like a monster at all, why did Dad have to keep _harping_ on it all the time?

 _Because he cares_ , said a little voice in the back of Dean’s head. _Because he doesn’t want you to end up like Mom._

Dean told the little voice to shut up. Dad did dangerous things all the time, and he never seemed to care about the fact that he could also die at any time, and where would that leave Dean?

As always, Dean’s brain froze up a little bit at the idea of Dad dying. It was just impossible. Dad couldn’t die. Nothing bad, not really bad, could ever happen to Dad. Sure, he could get hurt, he could be bleeding or in the hospital, but that wasn’t something _really_ bad. That was just what happened to hunters.

For the first time since leaving camp—Dad was always very distracted, after a long session—John Winchester turned to really look at his son for a minute. “You need to be careful, Dean,” he said. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean answered.

For a second, both Winchesters waited, as though to see if one or the other would find a new direction for the conversation. When no new topics came up—they certainly wouldn’t talk about their feelings—they both relaxed. Sometimes it was better to just not talk about anything at all than to try and find something to share. After all, they had shared their lives for eleven years. There was, in the end, very little to talk about that did not go back to Mary’s death, or hunting, or the empty, open roads that they traveled.

“Hungry?” Dad asked at last, when they crossed the Nevada/Utah state line.

Dean was starving—the one piece of squished pie had been _ages_ ago, and he had really tried to give Sam as much of the pie as he could, because it was his treat after all—but before he let it slip, he remembered that he had said that the pie was his snack. So he modified. “A little, sir,” he said casually.

Only after the words left his mouth did he realize that it was the first time he had lied to Dad. Really lied. About a monster no less.

But if John noticed, he didn't make a big deal about it. Dean worked very hard to keep his eyes on Dad, so that John wouldn’t suspect the lie. If he didn’t break eye contact, often civilians thought he was telling the truth.

Either it worked on Dad, or he just wasn’t thinking about it, or what Dean was saying was close enough to the truth that Dad didn’t notice, because John didn’t call him on it, didn’t even slow down the car.

“We’ll stop at the next exit,” Dad said. “Take away. I want to keep going. McDonald’s good?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said, folding his arms back up and looking out the window, but all the time thinking about Sam. Whatever Dad got would be fine, and today Dean was far too happy about the successful beginning of his career—Dean Winchester, pie smuggler—to worry about much of anything else.

***

When the guards called for her, Rebecca could usually brace herself for whatever would come by the time she finished standing up. Her only fear was Special Research, that they would decide to pull her there early ( _no, not early anymore, it was almost time_ ), without any warning.

But when they called for _Sam_ – using that new nickname, Pretty Freak, which made her skin crawl – Becca’s heart jumped into her throat, and she thought for a moment she was going to lose it, right there over the bullet-packing table in the second floor of the Workhouse.

Sam, however, had already jumped down from the thin bench and was moving toward the exit behind the guard, no dawdling. He knew better than to trust them, than to expect anything good to happen, but he still had no idea how bad it _could_ be, what _could_ be about to happen to him. What if _Sam_ was going to Special Research now? And Rebecca was shaking, unable to control it, and hating herself because she was just making herself and Sam more vulnerable by it, should either of them live another day.

What could they want with Sam? What could they want with her innocent boy who shouldn’t be here at all, who certainly couldn’t know anything or provide any useful information in an interrogation? She couldn’t keep herself on the bench, filling bullets one-handed, not when the only thing worth living for in her life was walking out with a guard. She moved to the window, pretending that she just had to catch her breath for a second, but really watching the yard through the narrow opening in the bars. She had to see where he went, if he made the turn to Special Research. After a minute or so, she saw Sam leave the building in the guard's shadow. She watched as they walked up to another boy waiting in the yard.

The real boy. Dean.

Dean Winchester.

Maybe it was partly because she hadn’t gotten enough food lately (hard not to give everything to Sammy; she had to remind herself she had to keep up her strength for his sake), but Rebecca had to grip tight the edge of the window frame to keep herself up. She couldn’t look away now.

The guard had walked away, and Sam and Dean were just standing there, looking at each other. Dear God, Sam was looking him in the _face_ , had he forgotten everything she told him….

But nothing else was happening. From the way Dean moved his head, she figured he was talking. And there Sam was, nodding. Then Dean looked over toward Reception, glanced back at Sam, who nodded again, and they both walked that way.

Dean even walked like a hunter, though he probably wasn’t more than ten or eleven. It made her physically ill watching her small boy, both so resilient and delicate, walking next to him. _Next to_ , not even falling a step behind. She could barely believe what she was seeing – Sam was so good about remembering everything. How could meeting another boy - a real child - have made him forget everything that was vital to keeping him alive?

Nothing good could come of this.

They disappeared around the corner. After a moment more, prodded a bit by the speculative eyes of the guard, Rebecca forced herself away, forced her shaking hand back to measuring salt and iron into the bullet casings. She couldn’t do anything for Sam now but wait – hope – he came back to her.

He did. It was more than an hour later, just as the sun was going to set, but he came back up to her as she was leaving the mess hall after another unsatisfying, insufficient meal .As soon as he had reached her, out of sight of anyone else, his face lit up with the biggest smile that had probably ever been seen in Freak Camp.

"Dean gave me _pie_ , Becca!" Despite his excitement, he kept his voice in a breathy whisper. "Pie, from the real world!"

Rebecca's heart missed a few beats, and the horror that must have shown on her face dimmed Sammy's smile. She swallowed hard, pulling him forward into her lap, grasping at him with her hand and stump, like she could feel his face between her palms. His skin was the same temperature as before, just slightly warm - all the same, she was nearly shaking again, this time with rage. Child or not, she wanted to _kill_ that boy. She could choke him with one hand, given the opportunity. "What - what kind of pie, Sammy? What did it look like?" Like he would have any fucking clue what pie was, like he should have ever believed - but there she couldn't berate him. No matter if Sam had known from looking at it, if a hunter said eat it, he would have had to.

The smile had entirely vanished, replaced with a puzzled frown. "Good pie. It was good, Becca. Dean said it was cherry, his favorite - it was red and gooey with a brown crust kinda squished, since he took it out of his pocket."

"His pocket," she echoed.

"Yeah. See Becca, Dean promised me last time he would bring me pie, because he said even monsters should know, and then he _did_." Sam bounced on his knees, and she stilled him automatically with a hand on his shoulder. What would have been sweet and cute on the outside was, in Freak Camp, just a clear invitation for the guards to come over and see what was getting the monsters worked up. And maybe shut them up. "He even let me eat most of it!"

That stopped her in her tracks. "He - he ate it too, Sammy? The same stuff he gave you, out of his pocket?"

"Yeah." Sam looked a little exasperated. "I told you, Becca. Dean's not like the other hunters. He's different."

 _He's a Winchester._ That's all that mattered - that boy was John Winchester's son, and anything that brought them anywhere close to catching that man's attention...still, the constant knot of anxiety in Rebecca's chest had eased, even if she remained confused and suspicious. Could it just have been pie? But why? Why would a hunter's kid, clearly already raised in that life - why would he do something like that?

Sam had fallen forward now to lean contentedly against her side, and she could feel his steady heartbeat. Looking down, she thought she saw a spot of red at the corner of Sam's mouth. She wiped it off with her thumb and brought it to her own lips almost without thinking.

Sweet. Real sweetness.

  


	3. Chapter 3

While Dad signed in, Dean lingered on the edge of the room, which was why he was the only one who could see his distant cousins—like Dad and Dean, Mom had been an only child—Mark and Gwen Campbell arguing.

Gwen—a younger girl, about fifteen—seemed to lose whatever fight they had been having, and Mark glanced up, a tight, angry, but satisfied smile on his face. Almost by accident, he met Dean’s eyes.

After the first startled second of contact, Mark stopped looking surprised and just held his gaze. Dean wondered if this was how it felt to be caught by in the spell of a siren or by the eyes of a basilisk or something. Mark was only six or seven years older than him and already a hunter and a sometimes-guard at Freak Camp—he filled in when there weren’t enough of the usual, non-Campbell guards to cover all the shifts. Dean was pretty sure that he was on the fast track to be a director, some day, when he had proven his abilities as a hunter to the satisfaction of the Campbell clan.

Dean figured that if he had been raised differently, Mark might have been everything that he wanted to be. If he hadn’t already wanted to be Dad. But as it was, he knew that Dad was a thousand times better than any Campbell anywhere—except Mom, and she didn’t really count as a Campbell—and they could all screw each other for all he cared.

Dean looked away first, and Mark went to intercept Dad, guiding him smoothly out the door toward Special Research while Gwen came up to Dean, the same light, falsely friendly smile on her face.

“Hey, Dean,” she said.

Dean shifted warily. He suddenly wondered where Mark had really taken Dad. They wouldn’t try to grab him again, would they? Last time…well, Dean had been a lot younger then, and he hadn’t really known what was going on…

 _But there were other hunters around that time,_ he thought.  _You wouldn’t have gotten away if not for them, and they’re not here now._

When the Campbells had tried to take him away from Dad at the Roadhouse, Dean hadn’t known what was going on, but he had known that these strangers, the cold-eyed hunters that  _claimed_ to be family, had tried to take him away from Dad, and Dean had reacted instinctively by pulling out his knife and trying to gut them all, assuming that they were some kind of monster trying to separate him from Dad so that both of them would be easier prey. It was an incontestable fact that Winchesters were stronger together.

The other hunters had stepped in before anything had gone too far, but Dean had realized from that day on exactly what Dad was afraid of when he talked about Dean being careful and not trusting anyone.  _Especially_ Campbells.

“Gwen,” he said.

She held the smile for another second—it almost looked like it was hurting her to keep it on her face—and then dropped it. “Samuel wants to see you.”

Dean stared at her, and she scowled. “You know who Samuel is, don’t you?” Her tone said that she had always suspected that he was an idiot but it was still irritating to deal with in person.

For a wild second Dean wanted to say,  _You mean Sam?_  But he realized quickly enough who she was really talking about. “Samuel Campbell,” he snapped back. “He’s the Director of Freak Camp and the ASC.” He didn’t think he had to mention some of the other things that Dad said about Samuel Campbell.  _Scary son of a bitch_ was one of the milder descriptions.

“Yeah,” Gwen drawled. “You could say that. You know, you could also say he’s your grandfather.”

Dean froze. He knew that. It was a fact. But he had never let himself think of the Director of the ASC as…family. Not even in the same thought as Mom. Samuel had always— _especially_  since they had tried to take him away...

“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose.”

“Yeah, well…” Gwen’s tone indicated that she didn’t really give a shit about Dean being family, but just talking to him was a duty that she would loyally fulfill. He wondered what Mark had said to her to get her to even start the conversation. “Anyway, he wants you. So, are you going to come or be a pissy bastard like your dad?”

“Keep your mouth off my dad.” Dean almost didn’t recognize his own voice. That low growl was something he heard more often coming out of Dad’s mouth. He didn’t quite recognize the smooth, easy, adrenaline-producing rage, either, but that didn’t take much getting used to. The room felt brighter, and he felt like he was practically humming.

Gwen looked interested. “Or you’ll what?”

“I’ll gut you,” Dean said. He didn’t even sound angry. This was how Dad sounded when he talked about the monsters that had killed Mom. When he told some jerk he’d just met that he could stuff it, that Winchesters needed nothing from nobody.

Gwen blinked, as though that was not the response she had expected. She looked at him, and for the first time in the conversation she didn’t look like she was dismissing him. She seemed to be studying him carefully, assessing the threat.

After a long moment she nodded thoughtfully, cautiously. “You might even have it in you,” she said. “Maybe there’s more of Mary in you than I thought.”

She could think anything she liked. Dean knew than she hadn’t actually known Mom, it was all the usual sort of Campbell bluff and arrogance. Dean watched her. If she made a move, he wanted to get to his knife first.

“So,” she said. “You going to see him?” She paused, and almost looked…like a normal teenage girl. “He really does want to see you. And he’s not…well, he’s old, you know?” She shrugged.

“My dad will know if you grab me. He’ll burn this place down around your ears.” Dad would too. Dad would do anything to keep Dean safe.

Gwen rolled her eyes. “We’re not going to nab you. I don’t know why we’d want you. Samuel just wants to talk. At least that’s what Mark told me.”

Dean could practically hear the irritation under her voice:  _And he could have told you himself, if it really mattered._

“Why’d he make you do it?” he asked.

Gwen scowled. “My feminine charm.”

Dean snorted, and Gwen’s mouth quirked. Their eyes met, and for that moment, Dean felt a camaraderie, a unity, a certain level of absolute communication. They didn’t have to say a word, but they both understood how stupid that idea was. Gwen Campbell, like all Campbells and Winchesters, fought and killed things, and while charm was useful, charm was not everything. There were also shotguns and gasoline.

It felt disturbingly like  _family_.

“Yeah, I’ll come,” Dean said.

Gwen nodded. “Good. That’ll get Mark off my back. And, you know, make Samuel happy.”

Dean didn’t really know if he wanted to do anything to make Samuel Campbell, his grandfather, happy—Dad could talk about Samuel for a hell of a long time and not say anything good—but when Gwen turned to take him out of Reception and across the yard to Administration, Dean followed.

~*~

Samuel Campbell had lost a hell of a lot of people.

There were friends, colleagues, enemies, civilians. So many people around you died when you were a hunter, but some deaths hurt more than others.

There was his brother when they had both been barely old enough to hold a rifle, when they had been cleaning out one of the last nests of vampires in Kansas. Eli had practically had his throat ripped out,  _and_ one of the bloodsucking bastards had got his blood in his mouth before Father had blown him away. Eli had been thoroughly dead, but they cut off his head and burned him anyway, just to make sure, because Campbells never leave one of their own.

Then there was Father, during a basic salt-and-burn that slid into possession. To this day, Samuel didn’t know if the little girl that stabbed him in the back had been a ghost or demon-possessed. Mother died of grief. He couldn’t say it any other way.

Remembering Deanna still hurt, especially nights when he went home to his house that was half-dark and half-barracks for young Campbells doing their ASC training at Freak Camp. Deanna, his beloved, with her crooked smile and her ability to ignore him when he was being an ass, had died of breast cancer. They might have had a chance with chemo, if they hadn’t found the hex bag that caused it too late to do any damn good. That had been in the early days of ASC, before they started cutting off witches' hands. He didn’t regret beginning that tradition and was only glad that Dee hadn’t been there when he finally found the bastard that cursed her. 

But of all the deaths in his life, Mary’s still gnawed at him the most. Maybe because he represented the ASC, his life now began and ended with the ASC, and he had built the Agency for Supernatural Control for her. Frankly, he didn’t give a damn about FREACS, wasn’t really convinced that they would be able to learn anything new that would help them in the eternal fight of Man against Evil, but every time he knew that another freak was dead, it gave him a dim feeling of satisfaction, like he had struck out once again at the darkness that had killed his daughter.

Maybe her death hurt so much because he felt a certain level of responsibility. She had been a hunter, she knew what she was getting into— _dammit Samuel, she had been out for six years, how sharp do you really think that left her?_ —but if he hadn’t been an ass, maybe she never would have left in the first place to marry that civilian. If he hadn’t refused to talk to her any other way, hadn’t insisted on bringing her to D.C. to remind her what it felt like, remind her of the adrenaline, maybe his little girl would still be alive. Estranged, pissed at him, ignoring his calls, but still somewhere out there, alive. 

But mostly he thought that it hurt because he missed her. Not like he did his wife—Deanna knew what she was getting into when she married him, loving, unlucky, kind, beloved ruthless woman—or a hunting buddy, or the man he bought his guns from when he was sixteen (a demon found him; fuck, he hated demons) but as his little girl, his princess, his hope for the future. Mary had had a smile that said she was going to do something horribly wicked, but she knew that he would forgive her in the end because she was just so damn adorable.

The first time she flashed that smile on a mark while they were hunting, Samuel had thought he would strangle the man right there.

People love their children differently. Samuel had never really understood that until he had Mary. You love your family—because often they’re all you have—and you love your partner, but children…they were like gifts. Mary had been a gift. And even when they fought, even when she had married the civilian, even when she was being a complete pain in his ass, she had been his little girl.

And then she died.

Often as not, Samuel stayed at Freak Camp these days, where he was close to the job and the people who needed him. He had had a couple nice apartments built into Administration, and the one he used was no worse—better, actually—than the motels he had stayed in when he was a younger hunter. And the little house in Lawrence had felt far too big since Deanna died.

Even though he didn’t hate living for the ASC and at FREACS, sometimes he hated the desk—symbolically, at any rate. It was a fine desk, large enough for all his papers and folders and a weapon or two, but it kept him out of the field. No one wants to die, but he had expected to die a long time ago, fallen in the line of duty. Now he was an old man behind a desk, and anything trying to kill him would have to fight its way past all the levels of FREACS security—not that They couldn’t, demons in particular had shown in the past that they had spies at all levels—and he missed the  _possibility_  that he could die with his boots on. Everyone he loved was dead, and he wasn’t quite sure why he should be happy about still living.

Someone knocked hard at the door, and Samuel looked up, one hand moving to his gun. He didn’t bother to say ‘Come in.' That had been a hunter’s knock—or a freak pretending to be a hunter—and they didn’t usually wait for a response. His great-nephew Jonah said that people should be more careful, treat him with more respect, that they would learn to show that respect if the proper threats and incentives were applied, but Samuel was an old man and he didn’t have the time to teach a family of stubborn hunters new tricks.

Littly Gwenny—some kind of cousin, he didn’t bother keeping track of the family tree exactly, beyond knowing that they were all Campbells—pushed open the door and peeked inside. Then again, Gwen was a spitfire, like Mary, and even when she “peeked” it was rather decisive and loud.

“I found him!” she announced.

Samuel put down his pen and loosened his grip on the gun. “Who?”

There were a number of people Samuel—and thus the ASC—wanted found. He knew of a handful of highly powerful witches, several demons—a yellow-eyed one in particular—and a hunter with a gun that were high on his list.

“Dean Winchester,” Gwen said. She stepped sideways and pushed the door open so he could see the boy behind her.

Samuel thought his heart was going to stop. He’d had some funny murmurs in the past few years—never bothered to get them checked, because what were the doctors going to say?  _Don’t have any sudden shocks, Mr. Campbell. No freaks trying to gut you, no demons sneaking behind you to cut your throat. Absolutely no fried food_ —but this was different. So different.

“Come in,” he choked out, and his heart started again when Dean stepped inside.

The boy entered cautiously. He was a fit, wary ten-year-old with short dark hair and eyes that were too old, too vigilant for his years.

He looked like nothing so much as a miniature version of his father, the bastard civilian Mary had married—Samuel had yet to bring himself to call John his son-in-law—and Samuel barely acknowledged as a hunter. Though he doubted that John fucking Winchester had had that knowing, too-old confidence when he had been Dean’s age. That was something that only hunting gave to children so young.

But what choked Samuel, what made it impossible to dismiss Dean the way he always ignored John Winchester—they hadn’t spoken in six years; they’d been in a group hunting a nasty shifter in Oregon and hadn’t said two words to each other the entire week-long hunt—were the other faces he saw staring back at him from Dean’s.

His brother in the jut of his jaw. Deanna in the wry twist of his mouth when he walked past Gwen—who had probably been her usual undiplomatic self—and, God,  _Mary_ in those eyes.

It wasn’t the color or the shape or the face around them, but the way Dean  _looked_ at him, fearlessly, defiantly, silently telling Samuel that he could go stuff himself if he was going to be an ass right now. Dean, like his mother before him, had a look that said he would fight to his last breath against something he didn’t believe in, would fight  _him_ without hesitation if he thought Samuel was wrong.

Maybe it was because his daughter had looked the same way and he knew that she had loved him to the very end, that he thought there could be the possibility of love between him and her son. Why else would she have come back that fatal last time, if she hadn’t still loved her daddy? The boy didn’t know him, didn’t trust him (why would he, with John Winchester for a father?), but they weren’t enemies yet. And when it came to family—Samuel and Mary; hell, Samuel and Deanna some days—sometimes not being enemies was the best that two people could manage.

“Dean,” Samuel said, pleased at how even his name came out. He was an old man—Christ, he felt old staring at Mary’s son and realizing he had never seen him as a child, as a baby, just the defiant half-adult in front of him—and it was good that his voice didn’t shake. “It’s…good to meet you at last.”  _Good to see you grown, it hurts to see you grown and looking so much like your mother._

Dean shifted uncomfortably, looking away now. Just like Mary. If she had been expecting a fight and you didn’t give her one, usually she had to regroup, retreat or at least pause a moment to find her balance again. He knew that more from watching her with Deanna than from personal experience. Samuel Campbel could usually be counted on to give someone a fight.

“Good to meet you, too. Sir,” he added, with a hesitation that made Samuel ache, like his old scars did sometimes before a storm. If they had been a different kind of family, if they had  _known_ each other from Adam, Dean would have said  _Grandfather_ where that  _sir_ was. As it stood, in context with the whole fucking Winchester-Campbell détente, even Dean giving him that much respect meant…a lot. Reminded Samuel of what else was missing in his life.

“I hear you’ve been hunting with that—John,” Samuel said. “Hear you’re…” for a Campbell, he would have said _doing the family proud,_  but Dean wasn’t really a Campbell - “you’re looking to be a damn fine hunter.”

Dean’s chest puffed out in pride at the same time he tried to shrug modestly. The combination made him look cute, cocky, confident. “I’ve only really been on a couple salt-and-burns, sir,” he said. “I do my best.”

“And you’re still here, so your best must be good enough,” Samuel said. “Ghosts aren’t exactly easy.”

“Yeah, salt-and-burns aren't so bad, if you can do it in the day, but research’s a bitch.” Dean seemed to realize what he’d said only after it had come out of his mouth, and Samuel had to hide his smile—God, when was the last time he’d smiled like this?—by ducking his head into paperwork while Dean blushed. “Sorry, sir,” he said.

“I’ve heard worse,” Samuel said dryly. “But make sure you remember that information saves lives. Don’t cut corners when it comes to getting the facts you need to tackle a case. Being sloppy gets you killed."

Dean snapped practically to attention, eyes bright. “Yes,  _sir_ ,” he agreed.

It was easier, made Samuel relax to realize that Dean was just as much of a hunter as the little Campbell kids, maybe more because Samuel—and the ASC—didn’t let children hunt as young as they used to. In the past—and for lone hunters—sometimes it was the choice of taking the underaged kids up against evil, or facing it and dying alone. Samuel felt a brief, unfamiliar flash of gratitude for that civ—John. Strange as it was to imagine, he had taught Dean what it meant to be a hunter, the pride and the danger, and that gave Samuel common ground. His grandson wasn’t a stranger, he was a hunter. After a certain point, all hunters were kin.

They talked about nothing. They talked about the job. The whole time, Dean looked a little confused, and Samuel wasn’t sure what he was doing, but dammit, he was  _talking_ to his grandson, to Mary’s son at last, and sometimes that had to be enough.

When Dean finally started looking fidgety—and what ten-year-old wouldn’t, talking to an old man for half an hour?—Samuel said he could go, and Dean turned away, heading fearlessly toward the door.

This was another thing to regret about Mary’s death, Samuel thought. Because she had left the family well before she died, because she had died long before they had really come to any kind of reconciliation, he had never met her son, never had the chance to be a grandfather to the last of his bloodline.

Sure, there were Campbells. Cousins, aunts, uncles, even a few great-nieces and nephews. But none of them really belonged to Samuel Campbell, Director of ASC, father of Mary, hunter among hunters.

“See you again, Dean?” he asked. He didn’t say anything else he wanted to say, because it had been said in the past, by other Campbells, and that had gone very badly.  _Stay with us, not with that bastard who sired you. We’re your family, and he never did anything but take my daughter away._

But Samuel didn’t say it, because he knew that it wasn’t what Dean wanted to hear, wasn’t what Dean  _would_ hear in that moment.

Dean hesitated, biting his lip and shifting back and forth like he could hear everything that Samuel wasn’t saying. “My dad…” he began.

 

“Maybe next time you come to Freak Camp?” Samuel said gently.  _Please say yes,_  he thought.  _Even if it’s a lie the young tell the old. Come on, throw an old dog a bone._

Dean nodded, more quickly this time. What was he thinking about so hard, beneath his stiff, wary hunter’s face? “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’d like that, sir. But only at Freak Camp, unless my dad says it’s all right.”

 _If John knew we were talking, night now, he and I would probably have to kill each other. Or he would take you away again and never come back._ The thought amused him, and he almost laughed. He thought that Dean understood how it stood between his grandfather and his father as well. But the boy— _your grandson_ —was willing to keep this cautious conversation a  _secret_. And that was Mary, too, though the last time she had kept a secret—as opposed to just not talking to him at all—it had been John fucking Winchester.

 _The world goes in cycles,_ Samuel thought as the door closed gently behind Dean.  _Maybe this one can be mine._

Samuel Campbell sat and smiled for a long time after Dean was gone, until finally bending back over the paperwork—requisitions forms, execution authorizations, new bounty legislation—feeling better, more whole, than he had in a very long time.

~*~

It was really easy for Dean to find Sam in the yard after he had talked with the...with  _Samuel_ , his grandfather. It was almost like the younger boy had been waiting for him.

When Sam saw him walking toward him, unmistakable relief filled his face. Dean wanted to feel glad that Sam was so happy to see him, but it wasn't quite that kind of expression.

"Hey, Sam," he said, ignoring the looks that the guards were giving them. Dean didn't know if it was because he was talking to a monster or because he had just been talking to the Dir—to  _Samuel_ , but he wished they would all butt out.

"Dean." Sam still looked anxious. He glanced toward Administration, and then at the guards, and then looked very fixedly at his own feet. "Are you okay?" he whispered.

Dean stopped farther away from Sam than he usually did. Something was off about the question, something he didn't understand. And he didn't want to be dealing with any more weird things right now. The conversation with Sa—his grandfather had been weird enough.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sammy," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Sam hunched his shoulders and still looked anywhere but at Dean. Though that wasn't completely true, because he was looking at Dean, quick furtive movements that took in his entire body, the way he was standing, but didn't ever get high enough to meet his eyes. "I saw your da—Hunter Winchester come in, and I figured you weren’t…I’m not…” he shrugged, seeming to think that the movement encompassed everything he wanted to say, even though Dean was still confused. "But  _then_ ," Sam stopped again and swallowed, and Dean felt his heart jump. "Then the guards said you were seeing the Director, and that you had come but the C-C-Campbells sent you to Administration, and I j-just want to know if you're all right."

Sam looked so worried. Dean wasn't quite sure why—sure, Campbells had tried to nab him before, but that had only been once and he hadn't even told Sam about that—but he could see that Sam had  _really_ been upset. Which must mean that he cared.

And in so many ways, that was much less complicated than whatever had just happened between him and his mother's father. 

"Yeah, Sam, I'm fine." Dean stepped forward and brushed Sam on the arm, just something to say that he understood that Sam cared and was grateful for it. Sam jumped like he'd just given him a static shock and stared up at him, straight in the eyes for the first time that visit. He looked terrified for a split second, and then whatever he saw in Dean's face made him break into a huge smile.

"Good," Sam said. "That's really good."

They had been drifting away from where the guards could see, and Dean crouched by one of the walls, where the wind whipping through Freak Camp couldn't cut quite so easily through the seams in his jacket.

"Wanna play cards?" Dean asked, holding up the deck. It was chilly out, and he could see his breath, but cards were always a good thing to fall back on. "And..." He dug in his pockets. He loved the new coat Dad had gotten for him. It had tons of pockets, he could always find something interesting in them that he had forgotten. Like today. "And I have M&Ms!"

Sam brightened, kneeling in front of Dean, who quickly shuffled the cards and started dealing out seven. He noticed Sam fumbled picking up the cards, fingertips working to catch the edge under the dirt. He got a few of them up, but they nearly slid out of his hand again.

“You got it, Sammy?”

Sam hunched one shoulder up, frowning as he tried to keep the cards spread in both hands. “Y-yeah.” He didn’t look okay, though. His small hands were red, and his navy jacket barely covered his wrists.

Dean put down his cards and held out his hands. It had been a weird day, but there was no way in hell he was just going to let Sam shiver like that. Sam had waited for him. He'd been worried that he had been talking to Samuel. Dad might never know, and the other hunters didn't give a crap, but Sam.... “C’mere.” Sam looked up in surprise, glancing at Dean’s hands, and hesitantly put out his own. Dean took his cards out, setting them down before trapping Sam’s hands between his to rub them vigorously, like Dad did when Dean had forgotten his gloves in the last motel. Sam looked astonished, but he didn’t move until Dean let go.

“That better?”

He tentatively curled and wiggled his fingers, then smiled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Dean would do a lot for one of those smiles. Right now, he was wearing one of his own, and pulling the cards up so that Sam couldn't see what he had.

Four hands of poker later—Sam had won one, Dean three, but he'd caught Sam cheating once to give him the better hand, so he wasn't sure exactly what the right score would be—Dean was feeling better. Sam always made him feel better. Maybe that was his monster power.

"Come on, Sam, let's walk around," Dean said, getting to his feet and shoving the cards into another pocket.

Sam jumped after him, and they started rambling around the edges of the yard, passing the bag of M&Ms back and forth as they went.

It was too cold to walk around in the open for long. Dean didn't know how Sam managed it in his thin coat. He honestly felt a little bad about his nice warm jacket, but he didn't think that the guards would let him bring Sam a coat, even assuming that he could find or snatch one without Dad noticing. Sam didn't complain though, and Dean hoped that he was the kind of monster who didn't feel the cold, even if his hands had been stiff earlier.

They ended up perching on one of the external air conditioning units attached to the edge of Administration, munching through the rest of the M&Ms. Sam was small enough to actually sit on the air conditioner, with a boost up, but Dean opted to lean against it, arms crossed. He decided that he looked very cool, in his new jacket. And Sam was cool because he was with Dean.

They were scraping the bottom of the bag, arguing about who should eat the last M&M—Dean always made Sam eat it, if he remembered, but Sam would never voluntarily eat the last one if he could help it—when Dean heard a sharp "Sam!" and snapped his head up . If this was some guard, Dean was going to give them the  _glare_ , because the last thing he wanted right now was to have to deal with another stupid adult.

Instead of a guard come to check on Winchester and his monster, a woman in a thin blue jacket and baggy gray pants rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of them sitting together.

Dean's hand went for his knife, but Sam brightened, sitting up on his perch. "Hey Becca!"

Dean blinked. This was Sam's mom? Dean looked her over dubiously. He didn't pay a lot of attention to girls—while girls could be hunters, of course, like Mom or Gwen, they weren't inherently  _interesting_ —but he could tell that she was not nearly as pretty as Dean's mom had been. Becca was bony-thin, her face haggard and pinched with bushy blond hair matted and tied back. Like every monster, after a first startled, nervous glance at Dean, she kept her eyes on the ground as she stayed back.

If Sam noticed her reaction, he gave no sign. He swung his legs back and forth, as openly happy and lively as Dean had ever seen him, but he didn't move to get off the air conditioner or run to her. Instead he grabbed Dean's jacket sleeve, as though afraid he might run or leave if he didn't hold on, or that Rebecca wouldn't believe him unless he had the physical evidence of Dean in his hands. "Becca, look, this is Dean, the real boy I told you about."

"Hey," he said, awkward. It was cool that Sam had just grabbed him like that, that he felt comfortable enough to touch him—hell, it had been a struggle at first for Sam to get close to him at all—but Sam was the only monster he had ever talked to, and he felt uneasy all over again facing another one, even if she was Sam's mom.

Becca took a couple steps closer, keeping her eyes on Sam. They flickered to Sam's hand on his sleeve and then up over Dean, just for a second before dropping. "Hello," she said, voice soft.

Sam held up the empty bag of M&Ms between them. "Look, Becca, he brought me candy."

The ghost of a smile tugged her lips. "That's very kind of him. Did you say thank you?"

She sounded more like a mom now, Dean thought.

"Yep." Sam bounced on the conditioner.

"I brought you something too." She extended her left hand, showing a small apple peeking out from a dirty paper napkin. As Sam reached out with both hands to take it, she added, "Be sure to offer some to Dean."

"No thanks," Dean said, holding up his hands to ward off the fruit offering. "Apples aren't my thing." He could see it was just as much of a treat to Sam as the candy, which was weird, but he guessed monsters really liked fruit, and anything that was a treat for Sam should be all his.

As Sam took an enormous bite into the little green apple, Becca knelt to adjust his shoe, which was threatening to slip off his heel. Smiling to himself, Dean guessed that Sam had been too busy banging his feet against the air conditioner to notice it getting loose. It made him a little glad that he was that distracting. 

Then Dean saw, with a jolt, that Becca's right hand ended in a stump. 

 _Witch_. Sam's mom was a witch. Dean felt a surge of fear and adrenaline rush through him. He had known Becca was a monster, but had never thought to ask what type. There had been this witch in Aberdeen that had gotten Dad so bad they had actually gone to the hospital, and Dean had had to wait alone while they pumped Dad's stomach for the poison she had given him, hoping that when Dad came out he would still be alive, that he wouldn't be coughing up blood. For a moment, Dean's breath stopped, his vision went a little grey around the edges, and he had the crazy image of the witch in Snow White handing out poisoned apples to the good, sweet children she wanted to kill.

Dean wasn't worried about himself. He could call a guard and she would be shot in the head the second he put up an alarm, and even the fastest curses couldn't do too much damage in that time, not with the resources that the ASC had. And there was something about the way that they removed the hand from a witch that made it harder for the spell to work. Though maybe that was just because it was harder to do  _anything_ with only one hand.

No, Dean was suddenly terrified at the thought that Sam trusted this witch every day, let her give him food without checking it for spells or poison or dirt, and that he  _loved_ her when she was a witch and she had probably killed people, and maybe she had slipped them pretty little apples too. Monsters were liars, after all, and she could be...

But then Dean caught the edges of this thought and told himself that was stupid. Witches wouldn't have access to poison in the camp, and Sam wasn't falling over snoring or choking or anything. Even Samuel had told him that he should have as much information as possible before he made a decision, and he didn't have nearly enough information about this Rebecca witch yet. Besides, even witches wouldn't poison their own kids. Not usually, anyway. The evil queen stepmother in Snow White didn't count, because she had never really cared about Snow White anyway. And Rebecca clearly cared about Sam. Dean could tell. Mom used to smile that same way when she helped him pull on his coat. Sometimes he had pulled it off again, just so he could see her face while she buttoned it up.

Finished adjusting Sam's shoe, Becca straightened and lifted her remaining hand to rest her knuckles against his forehead. That was all, the barest touch, before she dropped her hand back to her side and turned away, walking out of sight around the corner without another word to him. Sam didn't say anything either, still eating his apple in large quick bites - it was already nearly gone - but his eyes followed her.

And Dean was abruptly homesick, homesick and lonely, and what he wanted more than anything in that second was  _Mom_.

He tipped his head down, away from Sam, and pinched his mouth together as he decided very firmly that he would  _not_ cry, because he was grown-up and Mom wasn't ever coming back and crying wouldn't do a damn thing about it, and it wasn't Sam's fault that he missed Mom so damn much.

They'd been talking fine before, but now he didn't know what to say to Sam. Missing Mom was a familiar ache, but this made him feel weird too. He'd never thought about witches being good moms, taking care of their kids the way his mom had taken care of him. That didn't seem possible, what with them being witches and hurting people. Maybe Becca had learned her lesson when they cut off her hand.

And if she had learned her lesson...Dean wondered suddenly if monsters were ever released from Freak Camp, even though he knew they weren't - none of them ever left, because they were always dangerous. But for those who had started as people, maybe they did learn their lesson after a while in the camp, the same way other criminals did.... Then Dean knew he wanted Becca and Sam to be able to leave Freak Camp, to have a normal life again. Sam especially couldn't have hurt anyone. Dean had been convinced of that for a while, even if he couldn't exactly admit it to anyone. He didn't know how Sam had ended up here, but he was positive Sam wouldn't try to hurt anyone if he were out. And he wanted - a lot, he realized, he wanted this almost more than anything else in his life, anything he could actually have, anything but Mom - he wanted Sam and his mom to be out of Freak Camp, to have a second chance. After all, Sam still had his mom. Maybe the ASC could watch them, and they'd make sure they didn't hurt anyone or do anything wrong. 

But monsters didn't leave Freak Camp.

Sam was absorbed by the apple until he had nibbled it down to the skinniest core Dean had ever seen, and even then he held it carefully between his hands, turning it over as though he might have missed something. He was looking at him, though, equal parts worry and happiness in his eyes.

"What's the matter, Dean?"

"Nothing."

Sam frowned, then held the apple core up. "Are you sure you didn't want some? I would have shared -"

"No, Sam, it's cool." Sam's large eyes, turned up toward him, still looked worried, so Dean lied impulsively. "I had a couple this morning."

"Oh," Sam said, eyes going even rounder. " _Two_."

Dean tried not to smile. "Do you want me to bring you fruit next time, or another Three Musketeers? I've seen apples twice as big as that one."

Sam's mouth dropped open, and he clasped his hands in his lap as he rocked back and forth, overwhelmed.

Dean couldn't help laughing, and he reached out to tussle Sam's hair and pull him over. "How about I bring both? Will that work?" He was rewarded by the most dazzling smile Sam had, though just a glimpse of it before he buried his face in Dean's side. 

"You're the best, Dean."

And if he couldn't have Mom, and he didn't know what to do with a grandfather, being the best in Sam's world was pretty damn good.

~*~

"It was my birthday last week," Dean said brightly. "I'm eleven now."

Sam did not say "happy birthday." He tilted his head, examining Dean like he might have undergone some critical change now that he was a year older. "What's a birthday?"

Dean felt his jaw drop. Surely even  _monsters_ knew...but Sam was just a little kid. "You know." He gestured expansively. " _Birthdays_. It's the day you're born, and everyone in school sings you that stupid song and sometimes the teacher will have cupcakes or something, if she's nice. People give you stuff and are extra nice to you. Dad took me out for an ice cream sundae, and later we went shooting and he let me try out his new shotgun." Dean grinned, even though his shoulder was still sore from the recoil. It had been an awesome birthday, one of his best yet. 

"Oh." Sam shrugged dismissively, a gesture Dean recognized as meaning Sam found the information so alien as to be completely useless. "Monsters don't have birthdays."

Dean looked at him, dumbfounded. "Yes you do. You gotta have a birthday. I mean" - he struggled - "it's the day that you're born. What, do you think you just... _appeared_ someday? Popped out of an egg? Even then, you'd still have a birthday."

Sam shook his head again obstinately. "Monsters don't have 'em. Not like reals."

Dean sat back. Not often did he confront an intractable belief that contradicted what he knew to be true, but he'd been learning how to do research to prove he was right. It could be really boring, but sometimes totally worth it. "Okay, Sammy," he said. "I'm going to find out your birthday for you. Just you wait."

Sam looked at him like he was crazy, which Dean usually got at least once a visit. "How are you going to do that?"

"You'll see," Dean said, and stood up. "I'll be back in a minute."

Sam bit his lip, nodding as he dropped his gaze.

"Really," Dean insisted, because he didn't like Sam looking the same way he did when Dean had to leave. "I'll be back, Sam." He turned and headed for Reception, quick and determined.

The guards let him through with a basic silver-cut test—just to make sure he wasn't a shifter trying to sneak out. The lobby was empty, except for Mrs. O'Donnell the receptionist, so Dean went straight up to the counter, folding his arms on it and smiled brightly through the Plexiglas. “Hi.”

The woman looked like she was almost going to smile for a moment, but instead she just said, “Where is your father?”

“Special Research. Don’t worry, he can take care of himself.”

Now she did smile a little, before turning stern again. “You should stay here to wait for him.”

“Nah. He likes me to have firsthand experience with monsters. Actually, he sent me here for a bit of research. I need some information on one of them.”

Mrs. O’Donnell raised her eyebrows, even as her fingers moved to the keyboard. “What supernatural would that be?”

“Eighty-eight U I six seven zero three.” He had been sure to get a good look at Sam’s tattoo before he left.

She typed it in, though frowning a little. “What does he need to know?”

“How old is he? Dad wants to know exactly, down to the birthdate.” When she hesitated, Dean put on his best  _I'm a very sincere boy, you should believe me_  face. "Dad's very interested in 88UI6703."

Mrs. O’Donnell shook her head. “We don’t always have that information, particularly those brought in for bounties.”

Dean’s stomach dropped – he didn’t know how else he’d find out, maybe if he found out Sam’s hometown and persuaded Dad somehow to visit there… He  _had_ to find out, after promising Sam – it seemed really important, even more than usual, to prove that he was right about Sam having a birthday.

“Most of the information on 88UI is locked – I suppose because he’s unidentified. But I do have his birthdate here…May second, 1983.”

Dean repeated it, once aloud and again in his head so he wouldn’t forget. “Cool – thanks Mrs. O’Donnell, my dad’ll appreciate that.” He flashed his best smile again— _never let your guard down, Dean, whether it's a monster or a con_ —and he darted back out before she could tell him to stop.

Sam was waiting for him in the same spot, and he looked up as Dean approached, eyes wide and following him.

“Guess what I found out," Dean crowed. 

“What?”

“You,” Dean informed him, “have a birthday.” Sam did not yet look blown away, so he went on. "It's May second, 1983 -"  _same year Mom died_ , he realized, but pushed the thought aside at once, "and that means you'll be seven in a few months."

Sam looked like he didn't know what to do with this information. He blinked at Dean, then glanced at the ground.

Dean felt the glow of triumph slowly ebb away. He looked around at the packed dirt yard, fences, and patrolling guards, and realized then that Sam had been right. Monsters might have a birthday, a day they were born, but it wasn't the same kind of birthday everyone else had. It couldn't be - especially not here. 

It made him kind of mad, after all that hard work he did, after he'd promised to prove to Sam he had a birthday.

"It's okay, Dean," Sam said. "I have lots of birthdays. It's my birthday whenever you come see me."

Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder and the smile that burst across his face made Dean feel that maybe it was true.

But he still personally resolved to bring Sam something awesome when May rolled around. But he wasn't sure, when he gave Sam his present, if he would remind him that it was because it was his birthday. This was an idea that Dean would keep safe for Sam until he could enjoy it himself. Though he didn't know how that could ever happen.

~*~

Dad was angry, storming angry in fact, and Dean left him in Reception shouting at the new receptionist—Ms. Hart didn't look nearly as nice as Mrs. O'Donnell—while he went to find Sam, toting a full footlong submarine sandwich and chips—and a jumbo bag of M&Ms—in his pockets, ready to share with Sam and tell him about what had pissed Dad off  _this_ time (Campbells. It could always boil down to Campbells).

But he couldn't find him.

Dean scouted the yard, looking in all their usual spots, even peeking into the barracks, but there was no sign of Sam. He was starting to get frustrated, and a little worried, when he saw a guard making a round of the yard. 

"Hey!" Dean jogged up to him. "Do you know where Sam is?"

The guard raised his eyebrows. " _Who?_ "

Dean clenched his teeth, feeling stupid and annoyed. "Monster, uh, 88UI6703."

"Oh." The guard glanced around. "You might try...over there, that place between the barracks. He's been hanging there for the past couple of days."

Dean found Sam in the dark alley between two barracks with his hands pressed into his armpits, rocking slightly back and forth. He didn't look up when Dean said hi or crouched down next to him.

"Hey." Dean leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of his face. "What's wrong, man?"

Sam said nothing. Dean was about to ask if Sam was pissed off and ignoring him for some reason—shit, why did this happen when Dad was angry too, and Dean just wanted someone who wasn't throwing off sparks?—when Sam whispered, so low he almost didn't catch it, "Becca's gone."

A horrible pit opened in Dean's stomach, and he dropped forward to his knees. He had forgotten Sam's mom would be dying. Sam hadn't mentioned it after that first time. "Shit," he whispered.

Sam stopped rocking and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. "She told me not to cry, but I already did twice."

Dean wanted to get up and break things, take Dad's shotgun and shoot stuff up, which was how he felt whenever he thought about Mom dying. But he already knew there was no chance of bringing a gun to Sam. He stared at his empty hands. "I'm sorry, Sam." He hated it when people said that to him, it always made him want to hit them, but he saw now they did it because there was nothing else they could say.

"Why?" said Sam expressionlessly, and Dean realized he wasn't crying. "She's a monster. That's what happens to monsters."

Dean grabbed his shoulder hard, angry for a reason he didn't understand. "She was your mom, Sam. Doesn't matter that she's a monster, she was your mom. I'm sorry she's dead."

Sam shuddered. He didn't raise his head, but a moment later he slowly leaned his head against Dean's arm. He still wasn't crying, but breathing a little unsteadily.

Dean swallowed and nudged Sam gently, not to push him off. "Hey, remember what I said? Maybe our moms are together now."

Sam looked up, blinking in confusion. "How? Your mom's a hero. Mine's a monster. They wouldn't be in the same place."

Dean took a deep breath. "Becca was a good mom too, even if she was a witch. I saw that. I think my mom could see that too, and wouldn't mind hanging around her. They could be friends." He looked down at Sam. "Like we're friends."

Sam's mouth opened. He stared at Dean with his widest look of astonishment yet, bigger even than when Dean told him about pie. "Friends," he repeated. Like he couldn't quite believe it. And then Dean watched as his breathing went uneven again, and his eyes filled up.

He pulled Sam against his chest, resting his head on top of Sam's as the little kid buried his face into Dean's shoulder and his shoulders shook. Dean just held him, that entire visit, until he heard the guards start calling for him. He left both halves of sandwich in Sam's hands.

He wasn't sure what made had made him feel worse, how close Sam had been to crying, or the fact that he never really had.

~*~

They were half an hour away from Freak Camp before Dad noticed that Dean had only half-heartedly been responding to his diatribe about fucking ASC bureaucracy and assfuckery. He stopped himself in the middle of another explicit description of Mark Campbell's character to glance at Dean. John half coughed, like he had to clear his throat to get the anger out. "You're awfully quiet."

Dean shrugged, not looking at him, still staring vacantly out the window. He'd been thinking, and something had occured to him about Sam's mom. Something horrible, and he couldn't get it out of his head. He didn't really want to ask, but he had to know. "Dad - what happens to monsters in Special Research?"

John looked surprised, then his expression closed. "Why do you want to know?"

Sam's mom went there. Dean shrugged. "Just wondering. It's where you always go."

John didn't answer for a long moment, until Dean thought he wouldn't. "It's not pretty," he said at last. "It's where hunters find out what they need to know."

Dean stared at him. "You mean - torture?"

John sighed, resettling his hands on the steering wheel. "No, not torture. It always has a point. And they're monsters, Dean, like the ones that killed your mom." His voice hardened. "Don't forget that. Don't go feeling sorry for them."

Dean would never forget, he couldn't believe Dad would think that, but - Sam's mom hadn't killed Mom. But then again, she had been a witch, she had hurt people.

But Sam hadn't. He couldn't even remember what made him a monster. Dean couldn't imagine Sam hurting anyone.

He scuffed his shoes on the floor mat, trying to ignore the sick twisted feeling in his stomach. He didn't want to think about how Sam would feel if he knew his mom would be tortured before they killed her. "Do all monsters go to Special Research?" he asked, a little desperately.

John exhaled loudly. "I don't know, Dean."

He swallowed. He had never been sick riding in the Impala, but he was starting to think it might happen soon. "Not all monsters are the same, though. Some of them get caught when they're babies, before they do anything. Why should they -"

"Dean." John's voice held a warning now. "I know you've been talking to that Sam kid, and I would never let you if I hadn't thought you'd learned what I taught you and got your head straight. Monsters are monsters."

 _Sam's a monster_. Dean slumped back. He would not cry or puke. He would not think of Sam going to Special Research. Monster or no, he would never let Sam go there. Though he had no idea how he could stop it. But he  _would_. "Yes, sir."


	4. Chapter 4

**  
**

_July 25, 1992_ Sam wrote neatly in the top right-hand corner of the page, and paused before opening the heavy old book to where he had left off yesterday combing for any mention of djinn and their relation to aconite, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane. Five months ago today had been Dean's thirteenth birthday, and he had last come to see Sam sixteen days ago.

This was the worst part of summer. Sam knew deep down that wasn't true, that August was still ahead, but it was something Becca had taught him years ago. Each morning he thought,  _today will be the worst day_  - whether that meant the hottest, the hungriest, or the unluckiest, where he'd be in the wrong spot at the wrong time when the guards were looking for some fun or the full-grown monsters decided he was an easy target. That way he was ready for it. He never let his hopes get up for tomorrow, either - reminding himself that when winter came he would wish for this heat, heat that made him feel like he was suffocating and a second away from swooning when he was required to stand. In each season of the year in Freak Camp, something was always the worst.

Except one thing. One thing that didn't count because it wasn't part of Freak Camp; it came from outside, and it was always just for Sam, only Sam. He kept it close and hidden deep inside himself all the time, knowing better than to even  _think_ about it around certain guards or when certain things were happening around him. That was another of Becca's lessons - the more you cared about something, the more important it was to never, ever let anyone else find out. She hadn't even let Sam tell her what it was. And this was far, far too important to risk.

So Sam didn't let himself think about it, didn't let himself consider the possibility that today might not be the  _worst day_  but the  _best day_ , if Dean strolled in to see him.

He knew Dean would be back to see him, because Dean always came back, and each time he promised to return again. It was better, though, for Sam to hold off that promise, to think that  _maybe next week_  Dean would show up again, so he had to get through these days. And he could, he could always do it, knowing that today was the worst, and if he made it he would win, because Dean  _would_ come to see him again, but only if he made it through.

Although sometimes he knew better than to think of Dean at all, and every day he knew better than to hope for Dean to come that same day, Sam thought it was okay to pretend Dean was there with him most of the time, as long as he didn't ever forget it wasn't true. It helped the time go by, especially during roll call, punishment assemblies or rock salt breaking, to think of Dean sauntering around totally unafraid of the guards, or complaining about how bored he was and pulling out his cards or maybe a new bag of candy to wave at Sam until he took some. Sam could remember exactly how they had spent every moment of the last visit, mostly because he replayed it in his head during every morning roll call, every free moment in his day, though he was sure to keep listening for when they called his number.

Of course the guards weren't the only ones he had to watch out for. The other monsters, though often stupid about what they tried to get away with, could be even more dangerous.

Becca had told him repeatedly not to trust—not to even talk to, if he could help it-—any of the other monsters. Sam remembered all of her lessons, but this one she had been especially insistent about.  _Don't believe them, Sam, no matter how nice they pretend to be. They'll just take your food or blanket or anything else they can get from you. Don't let them get close to you, and don't turn your back on them._

That wasn't hard to remember. None of the other monsters were like Becca, and Sam could tell from watching them that they would hurt him if they thought it would get them an extra bite of food or distract the guards.

But Sam was good at keeping out of sight and not letting them corner him. And they never expected a child as young as him to fight quite so well. He was faster than they thought, and if he had to, he used his nails, teeth, or elbows to strike fast and hard so he'd be able to get out of a tight spot. After all, they couldn't do anything when the guards were watching. He wasn't stupid like most of them, either; he never drew the guards' attention. He never talked back.

He had a system, and it worked, it kept him safe. He'd never been hurt too badly, hadn't even lost a single finger or toe, and they still hadn't taken him to Special Research or even any interrogations with hunters. But the thing about Freak Camp was that just when you thought you had figured out a way to make things not so bad, something changed up. A new shipment of monsters, or a different set of guards could completely change the dynamic for everyone. And it was never for the better. Because no matter what, life in Freak Camp always got worse.

~*~

The new guard, Elmer Rosenstein, didn't look like much. He was muscular, but not the way some of the monsters were built, like they could break their own bones just by moving too fast. He had big hands and a flat face that didn't show a lot of emotion while Mark Campbell and Victor Todd showed him around the camp. But there was a certain blank focus in his eyes that made Sam nervous, made him try to stay as far away from him as possible.

After the second tour around the yard, through Workhouse and the barracks, Victor turned to him and grinned. He liked messing with the new guards, especially if they were a little horrified by their first real look at FREACS. Though he liked it more when they got as much of a kick out of the place as he did. "So, what do you think, Elmer my man?"

The other man barely glanced at him. "Don't call me that."

Victor blinked and then raised his hands. "Hey, strictly an expression. I don't swing that way."

Elmer shook his head, eyes flickering over the yard, somehow finding Sam where he was trying very hard to blend into the grey of the building. Elmer's eyes barely blinked as he answered Victor's question and continued staring. "No. Elmer. I don't like that name. Don't use it."

Mark and Victor exchanged a look behind his back. FREACS often attracted the hunters that had gone a little wacky, one too many vampire bites, but this was a little different from the usual paranoia and itchy trigger finger.

"Sure, Elm—Rosenstein," Mark said. "Whatever you want."

"Don't much like that one either," the new guard said. "So, we can do anything to them, right?"

"Within reason," Mark answered, cautiously. "There's a handbook."

"So, what the fuck you want us to call you then?" Victor asked.

Elmer shrugged. "Don't know. Never quite found a name that I liked."

"Gotcha," Victor said. "Well, I guess we'll just keep looking for something that fits."

Mark glared, but if Elmer Rosenstein noticed that he was being mocked he didn't give a fuck. Instead his wide, colorless eyes followed Sam while he turned and got out of the yard.

~*~

Sam had figured out a new shipment of monsters had come in from the screams and sobbing the past few nights, not to mention when he saw unfamiliar figures limping through the yard. The new ones were always obvious from the way they held themselves, whether frozen in fear or still clutching onto some remnants of bravery or self-worth—which was so, so stupid, since the guards could smell defiance a hundred yards away and came specifically to break them. They were always tugging at their collars too, wincing at how the edge of the leather chafed their skin. Sam didn't even notice his anymore, nor could he imagine what it would be like to have it off.

But he kept out of sight as usual, and none of them came close to him either - until the next night in the mess hall, when a shadow moved over his plate. 

Sam looked up to see that the shadow belonged to a sturdy, dark-haired boy with a fresh bruise livid over his cheekbone and silver werewolf tags on his collar.

 _He's about Dean's age_ , Sam thought, and immediately felt a surge of uncertainty coupled with the blind trust he felt for Dean. He didn't trust the other monster—that would just be stupid—but he wanted to because he reminded Sam of Dean.

Still wasn't surprised him when he got the demand. 

"Give me your bread," the boy said, pointing at the slice on Sam's plate. 

Sam looked down involuntarily. It was good bread for once, no maggots or weevils, just a little dry. He'd been saving his second half for after he ate the rest of the slop they were being fed that day, on the off-chance it would wash the odd bitter taste out of his mouth. He hoped that they weren't doing a toxins experiment again. Becca would—

Sam forced his mind away from thinking about what anyone else would know. It was just him now, taking care of himself, and he couldn't trust anyone or anything ( _except Dean_ ).

Just like no one else was going to deal with the werewolf in front of him. 

"No," Sam said. 

"What do you mean, no?" The other boy glowered. Which meant he was truly new to Freak Camp. If he had been there longer, he would have known that anyone who said no to a threat wasn't going to respond to a little glowering.

"No, you may not have my bread." Sam wondered what else he would mean by no.

Sam knew a lot of monsters, knew how they would react if he said something like that. No one had ever looked quite that confused before, quite so much like they didn't know what they should do with an experience outside their control. "Oh," he said.

The guards were noticing. Shit, the guards were looking at the werewolf and exchanging those looks and elbow nudges that usually meant they were deciding who, if anyone, actually wanted to move over into the mess hall and beat some sense into whatever monsters were operating outside the usual, expected, and permissable norm.

"Sit down!" Sam snapped. "They'll notice you."

Looking startled, the other boy did. Even though he was older. Even though he was a werewolf. Sam knew from experience that werewolves, even when they weren't transformed into their wolf form, were usually stronger than a normal human and always stronger than Sam. And that was the second hint he got that this boy was very very new.

"I'm Jacob," the boy said, blurting out his name nervously. He ducked his head to the table, and, while Sam tried to figure out exactly what he was supposed to do with this information, he looked back to where the guards had decided that they were not interesting enough to end their own conversation.

"Sam," Sam said. 

If a few monsters ate together every day, or seemed to talk too much, sometimes the guards would break it up or make sure that the monsters were separated—there was currently a mostly naked vampire chained out in the sun with his skin peeling off because he hadn't stopped talking to a couple of the other vamps when the guards told him to—but they didn't care as much when the monsters were younger. They had barely given him and Becca any—

Sam cut off the thought by pushing at the person in front of him, who reminded him in the briefest, least significant ways, of Dean.

"How long have you been here?" he asked. He couldn't remember seeing this particular werewolf around, but then again he had been scrubbing the showers last time a new load of monsters came in, and he tried very hard not to watch anything that happened during roll call.

Jacob shrugged. "A few days? Maybe a week. I don't know, it all runs together, and they..." he glanced at the guards again and swallowed. "I can't ask them how long I've been here."

It would never have occurred to Sam to even think about asking the guards what day it was, or anything at all like that. But maybe that's what came of thinking that you were a real person for your whole life. It gave you unrealistic expectations when you finally did end up in Freak Camp with the other monsters.

Sam tried to be grateful that he had never had ideas like that, he'd never had anything to unlearn. But it was hard, painfully hard sometimes to just be grateful that he had always known what a worthless, disgusting monster he was, grateful that Dean ever gave him a second of his time.

But if he had been a real, maybe he and Dean would have met anyway, and they would have been friends, real friends, and not just...well, he thought that he made Dean happy, and he knew that Dean was the best part of any day that he appeared in, but he didn't know what they were. He tried not to think about it very much, because thinking about things too hard always reminded him that he should be expecting the worst. And expecting the worst from Dean, like Rebecca had taught him— _You can't trust hunters, Sam, that boy's just a hunter_ —hurt too much, in a way that was much more painful than anything the guards could do to him.

"You haven't even been here for a full moon yet," Sam said.

The boy looked vaguely nervous, and then his face shifted into something that looked disturbingly like defiance. Sam felt his hands twisting into fists. He hardly ever saw defiance unless a monster was about to try to steal his meal—he'd eaten the bread as soon as Jacob sat down, because he didn't even want to risk it going to waste—or someone was doing something stupid with a guard.

"Yeah," the kid said. "Just wait until then. I'll show them." He glanced down at Sam's plate that held nothing but the disgusting slop, and stood again when the guards looked distracted. "Well, if you're out of bread, I'm out of here."

Sam watching him walk away while spooning the last of his food into his mouth. He wondered what exactly the hell he thought that he would be showing the guards at the full moon. Thinking about the actual possibilities—at least what he could guess at, he had never actually been in Intensive Containment, where the more dangerous freaks were caged and where the werewolves went for a few days every month during their most dangerous cycles—distracted him from the flavor. It made him sick, but at least it helped him choke down the food.

~*~

Every guard had his own little quirks, and smart monsters got to know them as individual tormenters. Sometimes it kept you safer, and sometimes it didn't do a damn thing to know that Karl smoked like a chimney and Victor liked to crack jokes that no one else cared about. Sometimes you could hear them coming, or smell the smoke on their clothes and do  _something_ —stand a certain way, hide, put on the expression that they liked—and avoid or at least minimize the pain they could cause. Sometimes it just meant that you knew what to expect when one got a nasty look on his face.

Elmer liked his club. He liked handling it and hitting monsters with it. The other guards made jokes about that—when he was out of earshot.

Jack Allendale was the first one to slip up and use their nickname to his face.

"Hey, Clubby!" he called, coming up behind Elmer. "Boss wants to see you. He has some concerns about—"

Elmer let Jack get within arm's distance before he swung around, grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the barracks' wall, billy club pressed hard against his throat. Right in the middle of the barracks. Right in the middle of a bunch of monsters that Elmer had been inspecting for unauthorized contact, changed shapeshifters, and questionable activity of any kind.

Victor, who had been inspecting with Elmer—he was the only guard who honestly seemed to  _like_ the new, crazy-eyed stranger, and the only one he didn't try to hit when he actually used the name Elmer—threw himself on his partner's shoulder.

"Fuck, man," he said. "Cool the fuck down, Rosenstein."

Elmer leaned a little harder on his club and the other guard choked, eyes bulging. "Don't call me that," he snarled. "I'm not a fucking freak."

"And we're currently _in front_  of a bunch of fucking freaks," Victor hissed. "He didn't mean it, didn't mean anything by it. Come on, cool the  _fuck down_."

Elmer put his hand on the other guard´s head, almost a caress. "I could crush your skull with my hands," he said. "Remember that."

When Elmer let Jack go, the other man bolted. And then, cool as you pleased, Elmer turned around and continued the inspection. The monsters tried very hard to pretend that they hadn´t seen anything at all. Elmer was one that, no matter if you knew what he liked, knew what he sounded like approaching, you couldn't always predict what he would do when he had that look in his eyes.

They all expected pain, expected him to take his anger at the other guard out on one of the monsters in their cots. Instead, under Victor's sharp, angry eyes, Elmer was almost gentle making sure that every monster was safe in his cot, a pleased, distracted look in his eyes.

"Night night, darlings," he said, before the security cameras turned to their active, watching position—sometimes they were turned away from whatever the guards were doing to the monsters before lights out, just to be polite—and they were gone.

~*~

Sam didn't see Jacob again until next week, when the werewolf was assigned to help him with research. Not many young monsters got to work with the old books or were trusted not to sabotage the information, but since Sam had been there longer than most, and he never made any trouble, and always presented his work clearly and error-free, he got the fairly light—and air conditioned—library duty most of the time. Still, he never took it for granted. Especially when stupid new monsters were assigned to help him. 

Jacob was more subdued than he had been in the mess hall, paler too, and his eyes darted around the room. Sam explained briefly what they were doing - it wasn't hard, just making a comprehensive list of all the different ways certain monsters and weapons were used in different lore - but the boy was fidgeting, and Sam didn't know if he had fully understood. That irritated him, because if Jacob missed something, Sam would get in trouble too and might be banned from research. So he scanned the pages after Jacob, making sure he hadn't messed up.

A guard had been stationed by the door, but he disappeared around noon. Sam kept working. A monster never knew when the guard would come back, and Sam knew it was worth a beating if the guard didn't find them still working.

But a few minutes later, Jacob blurted out, "Aren't you starving?"

Sam looked up slowly. "I got breakfast this morning. Didn't you?"

Jacob snorted. "If you can call that breakfast. No, I mean - lunch! Don't you  _ever_ get lunch?" He sounded desperate.

Sam sighed and reminded himself new monsters couldn't help being so stupid. "Lunch is for reals. Not monsters. We're lucky we get meals twice a day."

Jacob was studying him closely now in a way Sam didn't like, but all he said was, "How long have you been here?"

Sam tugged down his shirt to reveal his ID number. "Since '88."

Jacob rolled his pen between his fingers. "How'd you get caught?"

Sam shrugged, turning back to his book. "Don't remember."

"Nothing? Nothing at all? But what are you?"

"Not a werewolf," Sam said shortly. "Not anything you've seen before, so don't mess with me." That was his newest line to keep monsters off his back. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it just made them want to test him more.

Jacob made a derisive noise, but didn't take the challenge. "But you're just a kid. How'd you last here this long?"

Sam had had enough. "By not asking stupid questions," he snapped, and picked up his pen.

Jacob didn't try to talk to him again for a few more days. Friday Sam was sent back to Workhouse to help pack salt rounds for a special hunter shipment. Jacob was only a couple spots down the table from him, but apart from a flicker of his eyes every time he wiped sweat off his forehead, Sam didn't look at him.

They'd only been at it for an hour or so - silence in the workroom, apart from the guards' boots pacing down the wooden floors, the sifting salt and the click of metal casings - when Victor appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Pretty Freak!" he shouted. "You got a visitor in the yard."

Sam stopped, catching all of his thoughts and instincts that screamed  _DEAN_ , refusing to let them take off. He focused instead on the one task of not letting the casing slip from between his fingers. Deliberately, he set it on the table, and just as deliberately stood up, keeping his chin tucked to his chest so no one could see his face. This was the most dangerous part.

He walked stiffly around the table, until Victor yelled, "Pick up your feet, freak, you don't want to keep Winchester waiting," and then Sam broke into a run. It was an order, wasn't it, everyone had heard it, of course you had better do what the guards said.

Slowing down just enough at the door so he wouldn't bump into Victor, he skidded to the stairs, jumping down two or three at a time to the next landing, then bursting out the door into the staggering July heat. The brightness overwhelmed him, and he had to stop to adjust, squinting hard.

"Hey, Sam!"

There he was. Dean's voice. Sam turned toward him, grinning even though he couldn't see yet, because this was the  _best day, best day_ , and nothing else that happened before or after could possibly matter. He was safe, safer than he ever was in Freak Camp, and light as a feather. Even the heat didn't matter.

Dean came toward him, taller than Sam had remembered, strong and confident, and Sam looked down at the ground because right then he couldn't handle it, it was as overpowering as the sun. The simple knowledge of Dean being here, here to see him, was enough - Sam wasn't ready to look at that gift in the face.

"Dude, it's freakin'  _hot_ ," Dean said, as though he'd personally discovered this fact himself. "Don't any of these buildings have AC? C'mon, let's find some shade or something." His hand landed on Sam's shoulder, and Sam couldn't keep from jumping—not from fear, but surprise and delight that Dean had touched him again—and Dean never touched him to hurt him. But even if Dean noticed, he didn't take his hand away. Instead he bent close until Sam could feel Dean's breath brush against his ear. "I got a couple popsicles sneaked through, and if we're quick there'll still be some left. I can feel it dripping down  _my leg_."

Sam snorted out a laugh—a strange sound, weird to him, but he didn't mind around Dean—and followed Dean to the far side of Reception. He caught sight of the new guard watching them, but it only made his heart jump for a moment. Then he skipped closer to Dean, close as he could get without actually touching, and reminded himself he was with Dean, with a hunter. They couldn't touch him now.

~*~

The day Elmer got a name, Sam was standing quietly in roll call when one of the shapeshifters—currently a too-thin, brown-haired man with livid burn scars over his arms from hot silver applied during interrogations—went crazy.

Victor called 92SS4481, and when Jack went in to "hit him awake," the shifter went for his throat with teeth that were suddenly not designed for a human mouth. Elmer and Lucas—working "Campbell" shift, as the other guards called it when a high-and-mighty Campbell tried to do their job for a day—moved at the same time, but Elmer was closer and he aimed a vicious blow at the shifter's head.

Shapeshifters, especially desperate ones, have reflexes that put normal human beings to shame. The shifter knocked Elmer's club out of his hand and reached for him with hands that were showing long claws of pure bone through the sloughing, pink flesh.

The guards went for their guns, not sure they would be able to fill the freak with bullets before Elmer got his heart ripped out. The other monsters watched, not sure if they should join in or run like hell.

Then Elmer Rosenstein caught the shifter's hand, a fierce grin on his face, and across the compound they heard the bones crushing in his grip. Before the shifter could even scream, Elmer had caught his other hand and twisted until it looked more like a dead spider than a hand.

The shifter dropped when Elmer kicked out his right kneecap, and then, carefully and deliberately, his happy expression not shifting a hair, the lean guard stepped on the shifter's shoulder and  _ground_ his sharp, iron-heeled boot heel down. With a little bit more pressure the shifter screamed and writhed. Everyone in the yard could hear the shoulder bones breaking. Then Elmer kicked him in the head, until the shifter's jaw broke, took another position and broke the other shoulder.

When Elmer moved to settle himself on the shifter's hip bone, Jack stepped forward. "Easy, Crusher," he said. "I think he's fucking down."

When Elmer looked up at him—pupils blown and breathing uneven like he'd been fucking something—Jack realized what he'd said, and stepped back, terrified.

"Elmer. Rosenstein...I'm sorry, man, slip of the tongue, I didn't mean—"

"No, I like it," Elmer said. " _Crush_ er."

The silence after that stretched like a gagged witch on a rack. Lucas Campbell finally broke it. "You should get that freak out of the yard," he said. "He's getting the dirt all bloody."

A couple guards laughed nervously and Jack stepped forward, reaching for the unconscious body.

"Can...I?" Crusher asked, stepping forward defensively. Jack flinched away from him, even though he clearly regretted showing that level of fear the second he did it. He glanced at Lucas.

Lucas sighed. "Who put me in fucking charge? Yeah, sure, go for it, Ro—Crusher. Special Research."

Crusher smiled and leaned down to pick up the freak. The movement was almost gentle.

No one watched where he went—if the monster never actually ended up in Special Research, except for the incinerators, no one would ask questions. Whatever happened to him after Crusher took him out of the yard, that shifter never came back. Jack turned in his resignation, and someone put Lucas in charge of a deportation team, but Elmer "Crusher" Rosenstein stayed, made friends, and enjoyed his work more and more every day.

~*~

Full moon was a bad time for everyone, not just the werewolves—and other lunar-centric monsters—who got moved to Intensive Containment for their dangerous periods. The guards had lists of who they had to round up, but sometimes they forgot, and sometimes they made deliberate mistakes. Like taking monsters that had nothing to do with the moon, either because they wanted to, or because those monsters were "necessary for valuable transformative-based experiements". And sometimes it went the other way too, so monsters couldn't really feel safe after the great barbed-wire fence was closed down. Once, when Sam had still been small enough to curl up with Becca in one cot, the guards had forgotten a name, or maybe a paper-pusher somewhere had filled out the forms wrong, and the wolf went crazy and cut its way through half the barracks and cut the heart out of a guard before being taken down.

And even if the guards did everything right, if the werewolves ended up in Intensive Containment and all the regular monsters remained asleep in their beds, it felt no safer because the camp wasn't that big, and whoever had designed the main holding pen at Intensive Containment hadn't bothered to put on sound insulation. No matter what kind of gags they used, anyone with ears could hear the screaming and snarling wherever they were, no matter how they tried to drown it out.

Some monsters speculated that werewolves didn't really have to make noises while they were transforming, that it was the  _things_ that the guards did in Intensive Containment to try and stop them from changing forms that caused the screams. The werewolves wouldn't talk about what happened to them. Other monsters weren't sure if it was so horrible that no one dared to speak about it, or if the werewolves really couldn't remember anything but three days of pain.

Every full moon, Freak Camp decreased in the numbers. Every time. 

Sam didn’t know what happened in Intensive Containment. He hoped never to know. Nothing in Freak Camp, nothing at all, drained the new monsters so fast of their hope, their defiance, than three or four days there and the knowledge that this would happen the next month, every month, until the end of their lives.

He watched, four days after the full moon, to see if Jacob would come back. It wasn't that he cared. He couldn't care and Jacob hadn't really been that good to him, and there was no reason that he should care. So he didn't.

They were all standing in roll call, and this was the time when the surviving werewolves would limp back out the gates, eyes bruised and sunken from sleep deprivation, sometimes bleeding through their clothes from silver lacerations. They always showed unnervingly little damage other than the exhaustion and the occasional cut. The werewolf transformation sped up healing and prevented anything other than silver from leaving injuries. Strange to see exhausted, cut-up monsters without bruising, without broken bones, without burns.

And Jacob was there, limping to a place in the new line, mouth tight and eyes looking particularly vacant. He didn’t look at Sam, he didn’t look at anything, really. But when Crusher moved toward him slightly, he still cringed, as though some part of him was still reacting to the outside world, but only in a way that might help him stop the pain for just a second. 

Crusher saw the response and grinned his brightest, scariest smile. He cupped himself through his pants, staring at Jacob, and then, when the boy didn't respond, laughed and turned away up the line of silent, broken monsters.

Sam felt queasy in a way that had nothing to do with hunger cramps before breakfast. He might not have known what usually happened in Intensive Containment, but he thought he knew now what Crusher had done to Jacob. There was something guards did to monsters, usually to the female ones - sometimes it happened in the showers, but Becca had always made sure he didn't watch. He knew, though, that it involved close body contact, a great deal of pain, and it broke monsters very fast.

Jacob looked the same way that other monsters did who had been hurt that way: hollowed out, like he had been cut into so many times that the bits of him that made him strong, defiant, resistant, had been scooped out of him.

He was weak and he was a monster again. That was the way Sam saw him. But beneath that broken look that Sam was so familiar with, he could still see the edges of Dean, the early confidence and age and well-fedness that had first reminded him of Dean.

He hoped he never saw Dean looking the way Jacob looked right now. But he was glad to see him back.

“You survived,” Sam whispered, while roll call continued. He didn’t look at Jacob. He tried very hard not to move his mouth at all, and didn’t raise his eyes from his toes, didn’t even glance up from the earth. But he still spoke.

Jacob didn’t look at him at all, but Sam could tell by the way his hand twitched that he had heard. “Don’t talk."

Sam smiled briefly, then emptied his head out and focused on the roll call again. But at least no one whose name he knew had died today.

~*~

The twenty-second day after Dean's last visit was definitely the worst day. They had been served the decent kind of bread (only stale) and gruel (tasteless and filling), but Sam had slipped up and not watched his tray closely enough, so it got swiped by a skinwalker, and the plate and bowl were empty before Sam could even think about calling over a guard. Not that he likely would have, since he'd seen how far monsters complaining to them would get you. Then he'd been assigned away from the library, on cleaning duty of the bathrooms in the barracks, Reception, and Administration - backbreaking work not made easier by the stuffy, airless confines everywhere except Administration. But Sam hated going in there more than anywhere else - it was the Campbells' headquarters, and while not somewhere monsters disappeared like they did in Special Research...no monster wanted to be called inside.

He was vastly relieved to escape at dusk, hurrying across the deserted yard to the mess hall, praying dinner would be something digestible, at least - 

"Hey, freak!"

Sam jerked to a stop, catching his breath audibly. There was no mistake. He was the only monster in the yard, and Crusher had called to him. Crusher, from whom Sam had managed to stay the farthest possible distance and whose eye he'd managed never to catch since the roll call incident two weeks ago. He stayed perfectly still.

"Come here, freak."

Sam turned and walked - mechanically, but not slowly - over to where Crusher and Victor stood smoking outside the break room ( _breaking room_ , monsters called it). He kept his eyes on the packed ground and the guards' steel-tipped boots.

"Stand there," Crusher said, and Sam's eyes flickered up enough to see him waving toward the wall, directly under the floodlight. Sam put his back to it, trying to keep his hands still and chest moving normally, wondering if he'd missed something in one of the bathrooms. He hadn't done anything like that shifter, though - 

Crusher's boots moved in front of him, less than a foot between them, and Sam focused on breathing in and out at exactly the same pace, two seconds for each.

A hand settled on the back of his head, gathering his hair with painful tightness and not an inch of slack, then jerked his head back and chin up. The fierce light pierced his eyelids, and Sam lost control over the pace of his breathing.

"Pretty Freak," Crusher said, as flat as ever. "That's what they call you, isn't it?"

Sam tried to swallow and failed.

"Still got your tongue, don't you?"

"Yes sir," he gasped out.

"Good," Crusher said, and twisted Sam's head to the side. "That's good. You don't use it much, though, do you? You're a quiet freak. You think we can't see you?" Something hard and blunt pressed into Sam's cheek - Crusher's club, he realized, and couldn't make his mouth work to answer. "I see you," Crusher said softly, and jabbed the club harder into his cheek.

"Hey," Victor said. "Just so you know - that's Winchester's freak. He's laid a claim, see."

"I don't see his name anywhere," Crusher said. He jerked Sam's head back and forth, as though looking for a mark somewhere that said  _Winchester_ , but at least the club dropped away.

"Yeah, well, that's why his kid's always bringing him out. Guess they're keeping an eye on him for some long-term project, maybe waiting for him to get big enough to swing on a hook. Maybe Winchester's hook." He chuckled nervously.

Sam didn't listen. He didn't care what they said, they knew nothing about Dean. They couldn't begin to understand, because Dean was nothing like them.

"Well," Crusher said, twisting Sam's head to the side, "if he wants him, he better hurry up and get him. Freak Camp is a dangerous place for freaks." He leaned close. "And I like this one - look, he's so fucking easy." He shook Sam's head back and forth again. "Like a fucking doll. Look at that face..."

Victor waved his cigarette. "Yeah, yeah, I see that fucking face every day, Elmer-my-man."

Crusher turned. "What the fuck did you call me?"

"What? Crusher, of course." Victor raised his eyes innocently, smoke from the burning cigarrette curling up from his nose. "Dude, seriously, that's Winchester's monster. You don't fuck with Winchester. Even the Old Man knew that."

"The Director?" Crusher snorted, letting go of Sam's hair, letting it fall through his fingers, and moving away with a last caress across his cheek with the backs of his knuckles. "What do I care that that old idiot was afraid of his son-in-law? New blood now, better that way. Anyway, I tell you it's a fucking crime that Winchester can just reserve a monster, you know, a young one, and everyone just bows before him like he's a fucking god. It's not right, you know, special treatment like that."

Sam moved away slowly, not so fast that he would attract attention, not even so far away that they would even be sure that he had moved. But even the littlest distance between himself and Crusher felt better than being right in front of the guard's face with his hand in his hair. Maybe if he could just get far enough away...

"Yeah," Victor agreed. "And the fact that you've laid claim to that Puppy and we all keep our hands off while you're having your fun don't mean a thing." He took a drag. "Completely different situation all the way around, right?" 

"Fuck yourself, Todd," Crusher said.

Victor laughed. "Why should I? I've got people that do that for me."

They shared a look and laughed, but Sam didn't stick around to watch, didn't stick around to see if they were going to turn their attention back to him. He had made it to the corner and from there he bolted, feet quiet on the dirt of the compound, listening very hard to see if they were following him. Because if they came around the corner he had to stop. You don't run in front of guards, unless you have a reason, a good reason, to be going somewhere else fast. And you definitely don't run  _from_ them,  _ever_ , if you want to survive.

When he got to the door of the mess hall, he could still hear them distantly. He stopped and panted at the door, straining his ears to see what kind of trouble he was going to call down on himself for that movement.

"Fuck, where did he go?" That was Crusher, voice husky, with just a hint of anger.

"Leave it man, he's Winchester's. And hell, the Puppy should keep you occupied for a week or so at least."

"You know a place...?"

"Yeah, I know a place..."

And then Sam ducked himself into the mess hall and into a seat as fast and as quietly as possible. The guard patrolling saw him enter and came over, slapping his club into his hand.

"Where the fuck you been, freak?" he asked.

Sam wetted his lips. "Crusher, sir," he said. It was true. But if the guard didn't believe him...

The guard stared at him for a minute and then shook his head. "Goddamned pervert," he said, almost to himself. And then, sneering down at Sam: "You don't fucking get up to eat. You stay right there, or maybe I let Crusher play with you after dinner, too, you got that, freak?"

Sam kept his eyes locked on the table. "Yes, sir."

"Good." The guard walked away.

Sam let out a sigh of relief and glanced around.

Moldy bread and flavorless porridge. No big loss. There'd been plenty of days he hasn't gotten to eat anything, and a number of times he'd gone without for two. He'd live.

That's what he told himself, again and again, until the monsters were permitted to put away their spotlessly cleaned trays—most monsters used their tongues, just to make sure that they had gotten every last drop—and go to the barracks. He ignored the hollow pit in his stomach, and forced himself to be grateful that he had walked away from Crusher another day.

There had to be more to the world than Freak Camp. There had to be more than fear and pain and hunger. He knew there was more because he had Dean, he knew that this wasn't all there was, and suddenly—hungry, shaking from the relief and the fear—he needed to know that it existed. Even if he would never see it, because he was a monster, even if he didn't deserve anything better than this in his life—even seeing the sky every day was a bit much for him to expect, more than he deserved, he could be in Intensive Containment—he knew that it had to exist because sometimes he had Dean. He needed, suddenly, to know that it was out there, or he didn't know that he would be able to keep sitting down to the same nothingness, and still actually believe that this was any better than Special Research and the incinerator.

There had to be more to the world than pain and fear and monsters disappearing in the night and screaming on the full moon. Maybe Dean would tell him, if he asked.

~*~

Dean brought a half-crushed bag of potato chips the next time he came. They made Sam's mouth intensively thirsty in the summer day, but he still savored them as he chewed, because he'd never had anything quite so overpoweringly...salty.

Waving a dismissive hand - so casual, like it was  _nothing_ , that's how amazing Dean was - he had set the bag in front of Sam, saying he had some earlier. Sam had been getting his meals again for a while, but he still took each chip with the same slow reverence he always treated Dean's food. Even when he was hungry, he tried not to show it or do anything gross like a monster. It was amazing enough that Dean wanted to see him at all, Sam wasn't going to do anything to make him think twice. Sometimes Dean asked what he liked better, or what he wanted Dean to bring next time, but Sam usually just shrugged or told him to bring whatever he wanted. It was _always_ good, and Sam was both amazed and glad that Dean had access to good food like that, all the time. Surely, if he brought it to Sam, that meant he ate it himself, too.

So he knew he could count on Dean to bring him something wonderful no matter what it was, and he didn't care much past that. 

And he really didn't want to ask for anything, like he expected Dean to go out of his way for a monster's requests. He remembered the last time he had complained to Becca about being hungry. _"We're all hungry, Sam," she snapped. "Monsters always are. It's nothing special or different from anyone around you, and it's not going to change anytime soon. No one wants to hear about it."_  But later that day, she had brought him a hunk of bread half as big as his head, all for him to eat. He imagined she had stolen it from a secret stash.

As Sam ate the potato chips, Dean went on full-speed about their drive up the Californian coast after a rumored pair of djinn. Sam liked to hear him talk, and Dean knew he didn't have much news to tell him or anything cool to share, so he usually did all the talking. But now, as Dean's story wound down, Sam took the opportunity to ask what he'd been wanting to ask for a while.

"What's it like - out there in the real world?"

Dean stopped completely, looking at him in surprise, but Sam didn't look away. He knew it was okay, safe, because Dean wanted Sam to look him in the eye. He reminded Sam every visit.

"It's..." Dean trailed off, unusually lost for words. "What do you mean, Sammy? What do you want to know?"

Sam shrugged.

"I don't know, it's just - really big." Dean waved his hands apart. "And people are mostly the same everywhere you go, they believe the same stories, anyway, even if they talk a little different place to place. But it's mostly the same..."

Sam waited patiently, but Dean looked more uncomfortable than he'd ever seen him. He fidgeted with the peeling rubber on the edge of his tennis shoe, and the hopeful confidence in Sam began to fade. He was about to tell Dean not to worry about it, apologize for asking stupid questions, when Dean started to talk.

~*~

Dean had seen more of the country than just about any kid his age, but he had trouble fitting it into words now. It was hard to remember Sam had seen nothing Dean had, had no frame for comparison, didn't understand any of the TV show or movie references. No matter how hard Dean tried to describe the way small towns worked when they dropped into them for a few days or weeks, a game of baseball played by the local Little League, some idiots faking a haunting in an abandoned house - Sam's eyes never showed comprehension. He gazed unwaveringly at Dean, listening to every word, but they weren't getting anywhere.

It frustrated Dean more than he could say, made him almost want to  _beat_ something. Bringing Sam presents made him feel good, useful and important, more than anything else in his life did, and this was the first big thing Sam had asked him for. It killed him he couldn't give it to him.

He bit off his words, realizing what he had been about to say: _just wait, Sammy, someday I'll show you myself, I'll take you there_. He couldn't promise Sam that. Sam was a monster in Freak Camp, and monsters didn't leave. Not until they died.

Dean looked away, rubbing his palms on his knees as he tried to ignore the tight pressure building in his chest. It hurt the same way it did when he thought too much about Mom.

"Dean?" Sam huddled closer, almost leaning against Dean's side. "What's the matter?"

Dean swallowed, throwing his arm around Sam's shoulders. He couldn't have said why, or how it eased the pain inside, though he did notice how Sam relaxed a fraction, leaning back into the touch. "Nothing, Sammy," he said, though he wanted to say,  _this friggin' sucks. I hate this_. "I'll bring you some pictures next time, okay?"

~*~

Back in their room a few towns over from Freak Camp, Dean and John shared one of the smallish hotel beds and split up piles of newspapers. Dad was hot on the trail of another monster, one that tended toward cattle mutilation but wasn't above the occasional mysterious murder, and Dad wanted to check everything.

Dean had ended up with the older national papers. Even though they weren't likely to be related to their particular problem, research was important. Dad had told him that, and even his gr—Samuel Campbell had told him that, which was  _almost_ like Mom telling him too. So Dean read—okay, he skimmed—carefully looking for any unusual deaths or mysterious disappearances.

He was going to skip all of The Oklahoman because it was a couple weeks old and he was fairly sure Dad had gone through it already, when a smaller article on the front page caught his eye.

_CAMPBELLS, ASC LOOK AHEAD AFTER PATRIARCH'S DEATH_

_The nation mourns a hero today with the death of Samuel Campbell, father of Mary Campbell-Winchester and longtime director of the Agency for Supernatural Control (ASC) and the accompanying Facility for Research, Elimination, and Containment of Supernaturals (FREACS). He passed away at the age of 64 from massive heart failure. Those closest to the Director admitted that he had been having heart trouble for some time, but had been unwilling to disappoint the country or weaken the Agency by stepping down abruptly from his extensive duties._

_"While we are all grieved by this loss, we will move forward," said Jonah Campbell, nephew of the deceased, and presumed successor for the directorship of FREACS. "The ASC will not stop because Samuel has left us, and we would be disgracing his memory by faltering in our mission now. You may expect the ASC to only strengthen, grow more vigilant, and take new measures to protect our country from the supernatural menace."_

_A representative of the Campbell family issued a statement this morning that the positions of ASC and FREACS Director will be filled as soon as the funeral and other arrangements can be completed._

"Hey, Dad," Dean said slowly, sliding the paper onto John's pile. "Did you see this?"

John glanced at the newspaper and didn't even pretend to not understand. "Yeah, I saw it."

"Did they...invite us to the funeral or anything? I mean you didn't like each other but..."  _he was my grandfather._

John shrugged. "Haven't heard anything. Not like we would go, anyway."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I suppose."

"Find any incidents in your papers?" John asked.

"Yeah." Dean replied, "but only a few." For the next few minutes, he told Dad about the handful of mutilations he'd found in the national papers, and they agreed they were probably not that significant.

Eventually, John turned back to his papers and Dean was left with the Oklahoma paper. After checking to make sure Dad was absorbed in his research, he read the article again. It was short and said almost nothing about the life of the man he really hadn't known. Dean put the paper down, feeling vaguely unsatisfied. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond. On one hand, Samuel Campbell had been his grandfather. On the other, Dean had only met him once, and even that meeting seemed blurry and uncertain in his head. Dad hated him, and the nation loved him, and Dean wondered if there was something wrong with him, that he felt very little at all.

Samuel Campbell was just a stranger he'd had a conversation with once, and that didn't mean much at all.

~*~

Sam didn't look for Jacob, knowing it was better for both of them if they kept apart, but he took note whenever he saw him passing. Despite himself - maybe because Jacob had made him think of Dean, however briefly - Sam found himself hoping he would learn to adapt, adjust even to whatever happened during the full moon. Sam knew there was no actual point in learning to survive—not like there was any reward to it—except even with one worst day after another, (so many before he could be granted a  _best day_  with Dean) he still knew this was infinitely better than Special Research. Anything was. No price was too high to avoid it, which is what he reminded himself when he was scrubbing out the monsters' toilets or enduring assemblies, sometimes being punished for just being a monster. He was a monster, so he couldn't hope to be anywhere other than Freak Camp, but if he remembered everything Becca taught him and stuck to the system, they wouldn't take him to Special Research.

Even though Jacob was a jerk at times, Sam didn't want him to go there, either. That's why when he had a chance—when he knew no one would overhear them or notice, like when they were sent together to collect the laundry from the barracks—Sam would give him a short piece of advice, like how to always think that this would be the worst day, or how to avoid Victor's attention in the showers. Jacob didn't respond much, but he usually did what Sam said.

A few days before the lunar monsters were taken away again for the full moon, Jacob and Sam were together for researching again. Sam didn't have anything to say, and Jacob was clearly distracted, shuffling his papers around without actually doing much reading, twitching at any sound from the door where the guards would come through, occasionally putting his hands over his face, shoulders shaking when they were really alone. At last, he turned to look at Sam.

"How'd you last this long?"

Sam shrugged.  _Becca taught me._

Jacob watched him, still waiting for an answer. "They say it's because you're Winchester's pet. They've got dibs on you. Is that right? That why Winchester's kid always comes to see you?"

Sam bent his head over his books and did not answer.

Jacob reached over and grabbed him by the shoulder. Sam jerked away from him, but Jacob's grip tightened, pulled him closer so that Sam could clearly see his bloodshot eyes and feel how his hand was shaking. "Sam, how did you get him interested? You have to tell me. I'll do anything but I won't—come on Sam, I'm begging..."

Sam jumped up from the table, and Jacob didn't follow. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know why. It just..." Dean was the inexplicable light in his life, Dean was the one good thing that had happened to him since he'd come to Freak Camp. He didn't deserve him, and he didn't understand, but it was what kept him going, the idea that Dean would come and for a few minutes, a few hours, Sam wouldn't have to be afraid. "I can't. I'm sorry..."

Jacob turned away, back to his books, but his hands were still shaking. "Yeah, whatever, Sam," he said. "Shouldn't have expected a lucky bastard like you to give a damn."

Sam watched him for a second. It wasn't that. If Dean were a skill, or a piece of information, he would share it with Jacob, even if it wouldn't work as well for the older boy. But he  _couldn't_ because he didn't understand it himself, and he didn't want to think about it too hard.

They worked in silence for the rest of the day, and before Jacob left, Sam checked all his work. And fixed the problems, because he didn't want Jacob to get into more trouble than he already was in.

  
When the werewolves returned at the end of the next full moon, Jacob was not among them.


	5. Chapter 5

It hadn't been easy for Dean to convince Dad he was serious about picking up a photography hobby. Dad hadn't seen the point of it, and normally Dean would have agreed - what did cameras have to do with hunting? But this was important, so Dean ultimately won twenty bucks playing cards with some of the dumb kids at the next junior high -  _no one_  his age could beat him in poker - and bought a disposable camera himself. Taking pictures as they traveled through Arizona and New Mexico was a lot more fun than even he expected, and Dad finally caved and helped him pay to have the photos developed. They looked pretty good, Dean thought as he stored the packet of photos safe in his duffel bag until they turned, inevitably, north again for Nevada.

Of all the things he'd smuggled into Freak Camp, the photographs were among the easiest. He tucked the envelope into the back of his jeans, under his jacket, with a bag of candy in each pocket. He smirked at the guard as he strolled through the metal detectors, heading out the entrance to the yard while Dad continued on to Special Research.

One of the guards - a newer one, Dean might have seen him once before but didn't know his name - was pacing aimlessly, swinging his club in an arc. Dean stopped him. "Hey, I'm looking for 88UI6703."

The guard gave him a skeptical look, but lifted his radio. "Karl, send Pretty Freak out, Winchester's kid is here to see him." An affirmative crackled through the air, and the guard nodded toward the building behind Dean. "He'll be out in a minute." Dean nodded curtly before turning away.

Sure enough, Sam trotted out the side door a minute later. Dean, who had been hanging back so he could watch all the doors, darted forward to meet him. "Hey, Sam, just wait until you see what I—dude, what's wrong? Are your shoes more interesting than my face?"

They always went through this—Sam almost always refused to look him straight in the eye for the first few minutes of any meeting—but normally he got a peek of his face and smile at the start. This time, though, Sam had his chin tucked close to his chest, until Dean's words snapped his head up.

Dean sucked in a breath, grabbing Sam's chin and barely noticing when Sam flinched. "What the hell happened?" He leaned in close to examine Sam's black eye and split, swollen lip.

Sam swiped his tongue over his cut, fidgeting without pulling away. "Monster fight. It's not so bad."

"Shit." Dean touched his thumb to Sam's lip, drawing away when Sam winced. He remembered what the school nurse had done for him the last time he'd gotten into a fight like that. "You need some ice."

Sam tilted his head, confused. "What for?"

"Just..." Dean sighed. "Nevermind, probably too late now."

Sam blinked at him with his one good eye. "Doesn't hurt anymore."

"Well, that's good." Dean smiled crookedly, then reached around Sam's shoulders as they walked around the building to one of their secluded spots. "Did they get their ass kicked?" he asked. "The monster who did that to you?"

He felt Sam's shoulders shrug. "He got hurt too. We all got in trouble."

Dean blew out his breath. "Yeah, well, that's bullshit, going after a kid your size. There are plenty of bigger monsters here to pick on."

Sam's mouth tugged in a smile. "Monsters don't care, Dean."

"I guess not." He squatted down against the wall, only then remembering the bulge in the back of his pants. "Oh, yeah - got something for you." He twisted to reach back behind him.

Sam brightened, sitting up. "Chips?"

"Nah, M&M's this time." He stopped to dig into his pocket and toss a bag to Sam, who quickly tore into it and tossed a big handful into his mouth. Dean grinned. "You like those, huh?" Sam nodded, chewing happily, and Dean pulled around the photo packet. "This is the other thing I brought you, what I promised last time - pictures I took over the last month, when we were down south."

Sam's left eye went very round. " _You_ took these?"

"Yep," Dean said offhandedly. "Wasn't that hard." He spread them out and launched into explaining what was taken where. Here was one of the stuffed jackalope he saw in the gas station where he bought the camera. One, later outside that same stop, of Dad scowling at him while he leaned on the Impala. The next six were of different angles of the Impala - Dean hadn't been able to decide what was the best to really show off its glory to Sam. Next was one of Independence Rock—from pretty far away, Dad hadn't wanted to stop. And then a view of the Rocky Mountains, the Impala again in the foreground. Dean hadn't realized how many pictures he'd taken until they were all laid out in front of them and Sam was staring down at them, fingers cautiously reaching for their edges. He loved the way Sam's eyes went wide and amazed when he uncovered yet another photo of the world beyond Freak Camp.

They had been sitting for maybe half an hour, Dean proudly going through his stacks of photos, explaining where he was for each one and what had been going on. Sam was totally caught up, eyes wide and moving back and forth between the photos and Dean's face. This was Dean's favorite part of seeing Sam, when he got him to look like that.

"What the fuck you think you're doing, freak?!"

Sam jumped, and Dean reached automatically for his knife—which was hard to do because he and Sam had been pressed so close together to look at the pictures, and Dean's knife was wedged between his hip and Sam's—but none of the guards were looking at them. It was the same guard that Dean had talked to earlier, striding down on a shapeshifter who looked absolutely terrified.

"I'm talking to you, freak, you think you can just ignore me?" The guard reached down and dragged the shapeshifter up by a hook on his collar, and then looked around. He saw Sam and Dean in the corner, and smiled nastily. "Look at that," he said, still talking to the shifter, but keeping his eyes locked on Dean. "You're bothering Winchester's kid. I think we ought to have a chat. Sorry about that, boy." He pushed the shifter around, and they walked out of sight.

"My name's Dean!" Dean called after him, angry and unsettled and not sure why. The guard made no reply, but Sam's hand clenched in his jacket.

When Dean turned to him, Sam had shrunk down to where he'd been at the start, head hanging down and shoulders tense. He had dropped Dean's last picture to fold one hand—the one that didn't still have a death-grip on Dean's jacket—tightly over his front ankle. 

Dean looked at him, and both the adrenaline from the guard's shout and the happy rush he had felt just a second ago ebbed away, impossible to catch and pull back. It would take a while—maybe longer than he had before Dad was done—to coax that openness, where Sam could look him straight in the eye without his gaze skittering away, back into their conversation.

He scowled in the guard's direction, reaching across to touch the side of Sam's opposite shoulder. He didn't do it to get Sam's attention, but Sam glanced up anyway, surprise across his face. Dean didn't drop his hand, though, still frowning toward the guard. "They're assholes, aren't they?" he asked abruptly.

Sam made a soft sound, almost like a sneeze. Startled, Dean lowered his head to get a glimpse of Sam's face, but if it had been a laugh, there was no trace of it now.

~*~

Hard to believe that in the short time Dean had been away from Freak Camp, he had gone so many places, and Sam hadn't gone anywhere. But Dean didn't seem to mind that Sam hadn't done anything much except fight and be punished (if Dean had been upset about his split lip, Sam was just glad that he hadn't checked his back), do more research and try to avoid the guards' attention.

Sam loved the photographs, the brightly colored vistas of mountains and plains and small towns and strange animals caught in eternal scowls. He had seen similar pictures in some of the books they let him look at, but the real importance, the real value to the photographs in his hand was not the world that Dean had brought him—Sam was a monster, and if the world stayed right he would never see these places, never be let out to hurt real people —but the fact that Dean had brought them to him at all. 

He had been afraid for a second that Crusher would come over and remind Dean of what Sam was, that he was nothing but a nasty little monster and shouldn't be looking at the real world. Like he would get it dirty, just by knowing it, the way his fingers left smudge marks on the photographs. But Dean hadn't given a damn, had stared Crusher down like he wasn't afraid at all. And he hadn't cared when Sam's hands messed up his photographs, or when Sam had grabbed his jacket. It was the feeling that he was safe that had made him laugh, more than anything else.

When Dean left, Sam still couldn't stop smiling, because there was always that promise in Dean's smile.

"I'll be back, Sammy," he said. "Don't worry. Dad even said that I could keep taking pictures, so I'll have even more for you when I get back."

"That's great, Dean," Sam said, smiling. "You're great."

And even after Dean left, even after Crusher started to pay more attention to him, it was Dean's smile that made Sam feel that the word was a good place, even if he would never see it outside of Dean's photos.

~*~

Dean opened the door expecting pizza and got Child Protective Services.

Actually, he saw the cop first and grinned at him automatically. Some kids smile at their grandmothers for a little extra cash, and others know just when to drop a compliment, but Dean knew that around cops it was best to look cheerful, easy. Nothing to hide here, officer.

"Can I help you, officer?" he asked, trying to think if the guns were visible from the door or if he had moved them into the bedroom to clean them.

The cop smiled back. "Hello. I'm Officer Elden, this is Miss Donatelli. Is your father home?"

Dad was working a nasty case one town over. Had been gone three days. Two more before Dean had permission to worry. "Sorry, no, he just stepped out."

"Your mother?"

He'd stopped telling the truth after he realized that it got a stronger reaction than any lie he could come up with. "Divorced," he said.

"What's your name, son?"

"Dean." He racked his brain for the last name Dad had put on the lease. It had started with a W, which was funny. Wiccan? Witness? 

"Your father is Jack Wyslowsky? This man?" The cop flashed a picture too fast for Dean to really see, but it was probably Dad.

"Yeah."

The cop stepped closer. "Can we come in, son?"

"What division does she work for?" he asked, moving backwards slowly to get a better view of the thin, dark-haired woman, Miss Donatelli, behind Officer Elden.

"Protective Services," she said.

Dean knew what that meant. He looked old for thirteen, but that still barely put him at driving age. "No," he said, and slammed the door hard enough to push the cop's foot back over the threshold. He locked, bolted, and put the stupid little chain on the door.

"Dean! Dean, open this door! We just want to talk."

Dean ran to the single battered telephone in the room and stumbled over the number for Dad's new portable phone. It rang, a counterpoint to his beating heart and the pounding on the door. "Pick up, pick up, pick up," he muttered under his breath.

The second he heard the click of the phone answering, he started talking. "Dad, it's Child Protective Services, they're—"

"Dean, you know fucking better than this." Dad's voice snapped over him. He could hear screaming in the background, the sound of the shotgun being reloaded.

"I know, but they're at the door, and I—"

Something broke in the background, something snarled. "They're just fucking human, Dean. Run, I don't know, I don't have time for this right now. Deal with it!"

Then the phone went dead.

"Okay," he said. "I'll deal with it." 

He pushed the ratty table against the door, grabbed his sawed-off shotgun and Dad's box of fake ID's and credit cards, and climbed out through the bathroom window before the super could come to unlock the door.

~*~

When Bobby Singer picked up the phone and heard John's voice, he checked his pulse to make sure he was still alive. Because he was fairly sure that last time they had talked, the conversation had ended with John promising to see him next when he spat on his grave, and Bobby kicking his ass out of the house with his shotgun pointed at his head.

“Bobby,” John said. “I can’t find him.”

Bobby froze. There were only two  _hims_ in John Winchester’s life. One was the nebulous enemy that he blamed for Mary’s death, the epitome of all monsters—a damn crack dream, Bobby had told him more than once, not that he expected Winchester to  _listen_ —and Dean. 

“Something got Dean?” Bobby said. “Fuck, what grabbed him and  _how?_  I mean, your boy is damned careful.”

John made a sound through the phone that sounded like he was choking on blood, half rasp, half wet. Bobby paused. “John, it got you too?”

“Dammit, Bobby, nothing got him. I came home, and he wasn’t here. He ran…”

Bobby could not imagine Dean Winchester running away from his father. Sure, they were messed up in all the usual ways, and in a few that were purely Winchester, but he had seen how the kid always looked up to his father, followed his lead, did what he was told because he had that much trust in John. The last time they had “talked,” when the guns came out, Dean had looked ready to pull his knife on Bobby if he could only get a good angle. More than once, Bobby had wondered if he would really shoot John some day or if Dean would always be there to remind him that it really wasn’t worth it, and that the obsessed idjit actually mattered to someone. He had never met Mary, but assumed that she either had had the placidity and patience of a saint or had been enough of a woman to kick John’s ass every day and have him thank her for it. He could not imagine anyone else living with John for longer than a weekend.

“…he ran because I told him to, I told him to ‘deal with it’ and now _I can’t find him_.”

“Slow down, Winchester,” Bobby said. He had a hard time believing that Dean had run, but if John had told him to, if he hadn’t gotten grabbed by something nasty, then there was a good chance that Dean would just show up again, one of those wicked grins on his face, like when he had been a toddler and ended up inside the engine of one of Bobby's old beater trucks. Bobby had found the kid chewing on a sucker, covered in old engine grease, grinning like he had done a truly wonderful thing. Bobby had tried to give him a tongue lashing, but it had been damned hard with Dean so happy to see him. He had charm that made people like him, and convinced them that they could take what he said as truth. “Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”

John was struggling to breathe, and Bobby could hear every inhale and exhale as a gasp, full of pain. “My son is gone,” he snapped. “I told him to leave and he left and now I can’t fucking find him, what do you think?”

It slowly dawned on Bobby that it might be  _tears_ in Winchester’s voice.  _Holy hell_ , he thought,  _I never thought I’d hear John cry. Didn’t think he could._

“John, relax, take a deep breath,” he said. “Dean’s smart, resourceful. He knows how to take care of himself.” Part of him whispered that having Dean gone missing was something John deserved for the way he had raised the boy.  _You taught him better than anyone else how to disappear_. “How long has he been gone?”

“Two weeks.”

“Fuck, John.” Bobby was expecting a few days, a week at most. “Where…what happened?” Not that he really wanted to know. He didn’t think that one antisocial hunter could solve the problems of the Winchesters. He didn’t know if God could solve the problems of the Winchesters.

“I was on a hunt, and he called in the middle, said that Child Protective Services was there, and I couldn’t…dammit, Bobby, he’s my son and I told him to deal with that. He’s thirteen and…”

“What happened after that?” Bobby didn’t want to deal with it, he couldn’t, and more importantly right then he had a kid to save.

“I…I came home, back to the apartment we’d been staying at and…nothing was there, it was gone, the locks were changed. I asked around but there was some…trouble. I tried following the trail, but it was cold, so damned cold, Bobby…”

“How long between the phone call and when you got back to the apartment?” Bobby asked.

The silence made him nervous.

“John?” he said. “John, I can hear you breathing. You’re there. You don’t remember or…”

“It took me three days to get back,” he said bleakly. “I figured…Dean’s never been in a situation that he couldn’t handle, and I thought…”

 _You thought that you could take your time because you’re so damned used to Dean being his own damn parent_. Bobby didn’t say it. He had said it in the past, and he had a couple broken bones to prove it. He didn’t need to say it now. His silence said enough.

He was surprised when John broke the silence first, and not by hanging up. “Help me, Bobby,” he said. “You have to help me. I can’t…I can’t go to them and say that…I can’t tell them I lost my son. I’ll lose him forever then. They’ve been trying…I can’t lose Dean too.”

It took Bobby a long minute to realize that John was asking him to use his hunter contacts, to quietly ask people to be on the lookout for Dean. Maybe even talk to ASC, in case they had the resources to find the kid.

Bobby wondered for the first time if maybe John had disappeared so thoroughly because he had been afraid that the Campbells would take Dean away from him and make him one of their own, make him “Mary’s son” and not John’s at all. Bobby had always thought that John was a little crazy, the way he disappeared, trusted no one, rarely used his own name, rarely told anyone the truth. He was a conspiracy-theory nut even amid the crackpot group that Bobby considered hunters. But he wondered if only half of that had been because of the way Mary had died. The other half may have come from trying to keep a four-year-old and a '67 Impala off the radar of what had become the most powerful organization in the country. 

He would have liked to think that the Campbells wouldn’t have tried to take Dean away, but if  _he_ had thought about stealing the kid just so John would stop fucking him up with his own particular brand of crazy, he could easily believe that the Campbells would have moved in on anything or anyone that they considered “one of theirs”. Bobby had only met Samuel Campbell, the previous patriarch of the family and Director of ASC, once or twice before he died, but he had always considered the man to be focused, intelligent, clever, but not nice, not an easy man to live with, not a man that would let any outsider stand between him and family. And to the Campbells, John Winchester would never be family. No matter how many vamps he staked or werewolves he gave a bullet to, he would always be  _that damn civilian that Mary married_.

“Yeah,” Bobby said heavily. “I’ll help you. Don’t worry, John. I’m here, and we’ll get him back.” He just hoped that he wasn’t lying as much to John as John lied to everyone else.

~*~

John finally found Dean through law enforcement gossip. Cops in the towns where he drank—slowly, and nothing but beer, he was there for information not because he wanted a goddamned blackout—started talking about a wild kid, half crazy, stronger and meaner than he should have been, that had turned up in Jefferson, a state away. Kid wouldn't say where he'd come from, how he'd been surviving on his own, but he might have been the son of some national criminal, might have been just a poor abandoned shit, or could even be some kind of monster. No one knew what kind—horrifying to think that monsters could look like kids, too, all innocent and helpless—but anything was possible. And you should have seen what the little bastard did to one of the arresting officers. They weren't sure how his nose would set.

It wasn't that far a drive, but it felt like forever, felt longer than that first night when he had pulled Dean into the Impala after Mary's funeral, wrapping him in a coat in the front seat even though it wasn't as safe as the back—back then, John had been a careful man, and Dean had been his baby, the only thing he still cared about—and driving, driving until he didn't know the name of a single goddamned road and didn't know where he was. Because he figured that if he didn't know, then the Campbells wouldn't be able to follow. If he didn't have a plan, they couldn't show up on his front door with that polite, insincere smile on their face asking after Dean, asking if he was dealing okay, if maybe he would find it easier to deal with his grief if he didn't have an energetic four-year-old on his hands.

 _"He's a child," Samuel had said. "Of course you can't expect him to really understand what's going on. We'd be happy to take him for a few days if you need a moment to yourself..."_

 _"You can get off my goddamned porch," John replied._

 _The smile dropped off Samuel's face, and he was the same bastard John remembered from the days when he had been courting Mary, when Samuel had looked at him and seen weakness, uselessness, and something that should never have been attaching itself to his fierce, competent little girl. "Watch your mouth, Winchester. That boy is ours as much as yours."_

 _John cocked the shotgun. As far as he could see, Samuel was unarmed, but he didn't really trust that. "Leave and don't come back."_

 _Samuel stepped back, slowly, carefully. "We'll be back," he promised, and then turned and walked away._

Arriving was worse, because only then did John realize that he didn't have a plan.

Hunting was easy. Hunting made sense. You see a monster, you shoot it. If it's not human, if it's hurting people, if it lights up the EMF, then it's a monster and you put it down. He had a soft spot in his heart for psychics because of Missouri—one of the only goddamned decent supernatural human beings he had met, and a woman who had helped him through that rough patch, helped him keep it together for Dean—but even then he could see how any kind of power, any kind of extra ability could turn bad, could twist a person up inside until they weren't really human any more.

Hell, he knew he had some black spots, and those he blamed on monsters too. Even the ones that he sometimes had to admit had been there before Mary died. It was easier.

If he walked into that station and said he was there to pick up the kid, they would check his ID, and if Dean had been giving them as hard a time as he expected— _that's my boy, give 'em hell_ —they would be thorough enough to see through the fakes that usually worked on civilians. The civilians would accept anything he said, because they didn't expect it to be wrong, but these cops...they would want to know, especially given all the rumors about where Dean had come from.

Rumors that made going in and admitting that Dean was his son— _he was John's goddamned son, give him back right now_ —even worse. He would be in for neglect at least— _how could you leave a thirteen-year-old alone for a week? Jesus, John, when did you become a bastard?_ —perhaps abuse, maybe they'd even have the balls to nail him for some of the things he had done to keep them alive, back when he would have rather spit in his own eye than accept any aid from the fucking government agency the Campbells controlled. Now he took the stipend, collecting through so many channels that they had never been able to trace it, but back in the early years he had done everything from small-time scams and credit card fraud to shoplifting and bash-and-grabs. Yeah, he had done things that he wasn't proud of, but he didn't think about them much and no one gave a damn when he was saving their asses from the latest poltergeist.

He'd never had to think about any of that until now, when he knew any mention of his name could get him in the same jail cell as Dean. At the very least it would send up a red flag, and a Campbell would be there within a day, maybe a few hours, and then they would take Dean away from him. He knew they could. He had seen them put away enough monsters, had seen them convince enough Congresses and Senators and fucking white-as-a-lily civilians that their torture camp was not only a good idea—he had to admit, it was useful sometimes—but also a good and humane one, that he didn't think taking one thirteen-year-old away from one drunk, obsessed, criminal hunter would be a problem.

But there was a way he could get Dean out and no one would ask any questions. Yeah, the Campbells would see, and they might suspect, and it would give them more damned ammunition to use against him if they could ever really catch him, but he and Dean would be in and out before anyone could find them again. They would hit the ground, lay low at Bobby's for a few days. John hated taking charity, hated bringing anyone else into their problems, but it would be good to have another head, another pair of eyes watching Dean, making sure that there was someone around to protect him when John was being a fucking idiot.

He wouldn't even have to say that Dean was a monster. He could just flash the ID, and no one would ask any questions because that was how ASC worked. They would just look in his eyes, and they would know that there was a monster in their building.

Shame that they would always guess the wrong one. 

~*~

Two states, ten days, two stolen cars and three close misses—two authority figures and one pervert who hadn't expected him to know how to break his fingers from that position—after running from the apartment, Dean got caught and was dragged kicking and screaming into the local precinct office.

They hadn't expected him to know how to fight, but after the first broken nose they stopped treating him like a scared, misguided teen and took off the kid gloves. Dean was good, but they were adults and there were a lot of them, wave after wave forcing him into cuffs, then a straightjacket, and deeper into the police station. 

In the middle of trying to fight them off in an interrogation room, breaking bones and calling them every dirty name he knew—and a few he made up on the spot—he realized that this prison, this confinement, was Sam's life every day. Trapped in a little box, held down, beat up just because he was considered less. Like a shoulder popping into place, a lot of things that Dean had been feeling for a long time, maybe for years, fell into place, and he knew what he was going to do if he ever got out of there, if he ever got to walk out in the sun, shoot ghosts, or just get out of the damned straightjacket again. Right then he decided that he was going to get Sam out, no matter what. No one should have to live like this, and especially not Sam. 

It wasn't a new idea. It had been brewing in his head for a while. But it crystalized in that moment when his teeth sank into someone's hand and an elbow slammed into his diaphragm. After that, it was just Dean fighting them, fighting them with his eyes when his arms and legs and mouth were tied down, and waiting for Dad to spring him. He knew he would. Dad always came for him. He just didn't know if it would be gunplay, or a bomb, or a kind of one-man extraction attack like in the movies.

When Dad finally did come for him, it was terrifyingly easy.

John walked in and flashed his hunter ID. The Agency for Supernatural Control ID he never used, barely touched, wouldn't talk about.

"You have the boy," he said, staring blankly at the officer.

The cop swallowed. He looked into the man's face and saw death. Cold, merciless, unflinching death.

"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir." He handed back the ID. "Makes sense for him to be a monster. He put up quite a fight for a, what, fifteen-year-old? Couple of our people had to get medical attention. Guess we were lucky."

"About what I expected," John Winchester said, tucking the stiff, pristine, silver-edged ID back in his suit. "I need you to burn everything you have on him. Every photo, every file you put together. In fact, you should forget you ever saw him. It's better that way. Where do you have him?"

The officer had never turned a monster over to ASC before, but he knew how it was supposed to work. No questions, no paper trail. "First door on the left, Mr. Winchester," he said.

When Dean saw his father at the door, when the cop unstrapped him from the chair—but did not take off the straightjacket—he got up without a word and let himself be pushed through the halls with a rough hand between his shoulders. All the way to the door, he noticed how eyes skittered away from him, afraid to catch the monster's attention.

In the car, John's face was even more emotionless and cold than usual. He didn't look at his son. Dean pulled off the straightjacket and threw it in the back seat. "Sorry," he said, rubbing his arms and staring at the dash. "I fucked up."

John didn't look at him, didn't change his expression by a hair. "At least you're not dead."

The Winchesters didn't talk again for the next three days.

  
~*~

Sam hunched over his food, keeping an eye on the new shapeshifter. The guy, nicknamed Hulk for his ability to change and his current form, was easily six feet tall and had muscles that bulged against the thin fabric of his camp clothes. The shape had probably seemed like a good idea while hunters were after him, but in camp it meant that he had more of a body to feed. Food and kindness were both hard to come by in FREACS. 

Anyone in Freak Camp understood the need for food. But it didn't mean that they were any happier when someone, like this bastard, decided to go after the other monsters. Sam watched the shifter's progress through the mess hall, seeing the occasional fist to the face, little stifled cries of pain as those accustomed to abuse gave up their meager portions to the Hulk. All around the hall, those who still had enough self-preservation to notice approaching threats started eating their food faster, shoving it into their faces before the bastard could take it away.

Usually, Sam would have been picking up his own speed, trying to get the dry bread and mushed vegetables into his mouth quickly with the dull spoon that was the only utensil, but today he continued to eat slowly, watching his progress. 

The guards, who usually would have stopped the bastard or made him be more subtle about his thievery—and whose presence would have limited Sam's options—were absent. Gwen Campbell had been in and out of Special Research all week, and some of the guards had been snickering behind her back from the first moment that she came to the facility. The male Campbells broke a few heads, and at least one man got a tongue lashing, but eventually Dave Donovan dropped a comment about her trying to make up for her lack of balls by borrowing the monsters'.

"Gwenny would do better to find a real man to put some steel in her spine," he'd laughed as she walked past him after another long, unsatisfying session in Special Research.

She'd turned—the cheerful, angry look in her eyes the same one that had earned her the nickname Crazy-GDB Campbell—and smiled. "How about I break your spine and see if you've got any steel to spare?"

So the General Area guards were all gone, cheering on their favorites, betting mostly on Campbell to wipe the dirt with Dave's ass.

No one was watching to make sure the monsters didn't kill each other.

Hulk worked his way down the mess hall and eventually stopped next to Sam. Sam kept his eyes on his plate as he carefully scraped up the last of his veggie paste with the last of his bread. He knew he looked like an easy target. Skinny and pale, younger and smaller than most of the monsters in the camp, as far as this shapeshifter—so new that the chartreuse tag on his arm still oozed effluvium where it pierced the skin and arm bones—was concerned, Sam didn't seem like a threat.

Hulk placed one hammy fist on Sam's shoulder and pulled him back.

"Hey, Pretty Freak," he said, slurring his words slightly, grinning down at Sam in what the boy considered a mediocre impression, at best, of Crusher drunk on some poor bastard's screams. "You're pretty damn good at getting a little extra grub. How about you spare me some? You don't want me to be bad to you."

The hand on Sam's shoulder tightened. Sam glanced around the room, meeting eyes that were frightened or as eager as the guards' usually were to see pain. But they weren't waiting for Sam's pain.

Sam jabbed backward with his elbow, right into the sensitive point of the Hulk's thigh. Gasping in pain, the shifter loosened his grip. Sam seized his hand, twisting it over and in front of him, forcing Hulk headfirst into the table, just as Sam stood up to bring all his weight down through his forearm on Hulk's elbow. While the bastard screamed as his bone broke (sure, a shifter couldn't die without silver, but shattered bones still hurt), Sam rolled him onto the table—he was stronger than he looked—and brought the edge of his cheap plastic plate to the bastard's throat, just under the stiff new collar.

"You're not a real," Sam said, staring down into the monster's eyes. "You're just a freak, like me, and you don't mess with other freaks. We'll mess back. And don't call me Pretty Freak, muscle-boy. Do you understand?"

Snarling, the monster tried to reach for Sam with his good arm.

Sam crushed his windpipe with the plate and shoved the shifter's considerable bulk off the table.

He was sitting at another table, calmly licking his plate clean, when the guards arrived in response to the scuffle. They caught the shapeshifter just as he was rising groggily to his feet, the throat wound already sloughing. He bellowed and charged Sam, and then the guards brought him down.  _They_ had silver.

Sam glanced over cautiously, and then back to his plate, satisfied that the situation was over. Maybe later he and Hulk would have another round behind the barracks. But the shifter wasn't a real, a hunter, a guard. He wasn't even Dean.

There were very few things that could hurt Sam, in any way, and Hulk wasn't one of them. It was about time Hulk learned that before Freak Camp got him killed.

 

~*~

Dean sat in Bobby’s living room and cleaned his gun while Bobby sat in his study and pored over an ancient scroll. Then he cleaned the rest of the weapons Dad had left him—machete, knife, jury-rigged flamethrower—and gave Bobby’s coffee table an extra shine to get the cleaner off.

Finished, he wandered into the study. “Can I help?” he asked.

“Can you read feudal Japanese?” Bobby asked without looking up.

Dean shifted. “No.”

“Then no.”

Dean sighed and dropped his jacket. He needed some air. “Back in twenty,” he called, and got a casual hand wave in reply.

The run around the junkyard brought his heart rate up and brought out a light sweat that cooled beneath his shirt. It was a little chilly, with autumn in the air but nothing he couldn’t handle. He ran the perimeter first, making sure that all the trip lines and traps that Bobby had shown him before Dad left were still in place and unsprung, and then worked his way up and down the cars. Bobby had some sweet old beasts, many gutted and nonfunctional. Dean made a mental note of a few cars he wanted to work on, if Bobby would lend him the parts. Dad was teaching him his back-up job as a mechanic, just so they could have the same cover if needed.

He made the run in twenty-six minutes—no urgent need to get anywhere, not like he had anything else to do—and Bobby was still curled over his desk, a new book under his nose.

Dean leaned against the wall in the study and panted. He'd pushed the last mile or so, just so that he could feel something.

"Glad you're back," Bobby said, still without looking up. "I was just about to go out looking for you."

Dean glanced at the clock on the wall. "Six minutes over."

"Can't be too careful."

"God!" Dean hit the wall. "Is he going to hold that against me forever? I did the best—"

Now Bobby glanced up. "I know, kiddo. Don't sweat it. Just for a while John prefers—"

"He wants me to have a babysitter. I'm fourteen, Bobby, and I'm useless." Dean hit the wall again, hard. The wood left his knuckles aching, but nothing else changed. "Are you sure I can't help? Can you..." he waved a hand at the books, "teach me the frickin' Japanese or something?"

Bobby frowned at him. "In an afternoon? No."

"Dammit." Dean got up and went back to the living room, back to his guns and the duffel that held everything Dad had left him when he went away.

"You know what, Dean? I think I've gotten about as far as I can get with this." Bobby stood, closing the book as he rose. "I'm going to talk to someone at Freak Camp."

Dean shot up, his eyes wide. "Freak Camp? Can I come?" When Bobby gave him a suspicious look, he held his hands out. "Hey! Please, don't leave me here, there's  _nothing_ to do. Please, Bobby. You don't want to just leave me here alone, do you?"

Bobby sighed. "What the hell. Yeah, I don't want to just leave you here. Grab your gear, we're going to be gone a few nights."

Grinning, Dean shoved his weapons into the duffel and swung it over his arm. "Ready when you are."

The ride was long. Longer because Bobby insisted on stopping for naps on the way. Dean had offered to spell him driving ("Come on, it's  _four in the morning._  I'll drive the speed limit and the cops won't give a crap") but had been turned down. But it was all worth it when Bobby's Camaro pulled into the familiar gravel parking lot.

Dean tried to hide how excited he was. He had seen hunters looking excited and worked up when they went into Freak Camp, but Dad never was, and in all things Dean took his clues about how he should be behaving, as a hunter and a Winchester, from John. And John had never looked anything but stoic walking through the high barbed-wire gates of the Facility. When Bobby heavily got out of the car, bag full of ancient Japanese books, he also looked grim, serious, like he wanted the people at the front desk to understand that he didn't really want to be there. 

It was so hard to look sober and respectable, but Dean managed to pull the excitement off his face. He knew that the guards would notice it—he had been here often enough to know that no matter how sloppy the guards seemed, they really did notice everything—but he hoped that Bobby wouldn't get upset with how much he wanted to be here. He didn't know why Dad and Bobby didn't like Freak Camp when so many other hunters seemed to get a kick out of it, but Dean knew that he should at least try to look like Bobby and Dad. He didn't want to be just another hunter, running around catching monsters for the bounties. He was a Winchester. He had a mission. It was about more than the money—it was about saving people.

Honestly, he didn't want to be like the guards and other hunters that he saw at the camp, even though their behavior more closely matched how he felt when he went— _because he would get to see Sam_. The guards' attention was one of the reasons that he always brought Sam to whatever dark corner he could find, out of sight if possible—though the guards tended to walk around so they could still see him and Sam. They were probably just as sure as his dad that Dean couldn't handle himself alone. He always made sure that they were out of earshot at least, and Sam seemed no more eager to have their conversations snooped on than Dean. It wasn't like they were planning to lead a monster uprising or firebomb the camp or anything.

Dean carried his own pack, so much like Bobby's, but his didn't have anything really useful for hunting - just a jumbo bag of M&Ms that he'd grabbed at the last gas station, and a new book. It was  _The Diary of Anne Frank_ and Dean had thought it was pretty good, for a weird history book about something other than ghosts and things. Okay, so he hadn't read the whole thing yet, just parts. But the really clever girl in the book made Dean think about Sam, and he wanted to be able to tell that to Sam, see his face light up. When they were alone in the camp, Dean always made sure that he was between Sam and the guards, made sure that he was blocking any possible view the adults might have of Sam, because those smiles...those smiles were Dean's, and he didn't want anyone else to have them. That was probably crazy and obsessive of him, but obsession was okay. He'd heard his dad called an "obsessed bastard" more than once, and anything that John was was good enough for Dean. 

The prefabricated metal buildings were the same as always, maybe bearing a few more scratches, another layer of grime. Dean knew that the monsters had to clean the buildings every week, but the heat and dust still built up. Every time he visited, it was like Sam had grown a layer of dust, too, a layer of dullness that burned away the second he looked at Dean.

Dean loved that too. It was like an addiction, like alcohol, but so much better because he'd never forgotten a second of the buzz he got from being with Sam.

He got so distracted by the anticipation of knowing he was going to see Sam that he forgot to hide how excited he was until he glanced out the corner of his eye and saw Bobby watching him.

He suddenly felt self-conscious and nervous. Any second he would see Sam. A guard would see him and bring Sam out from wherever he was, or a monster would notice that he was there and tell Sam and he would come, or he would just be there. But usually by this point Dad was already long gone, his long stride eating up the distance to Special Research while Dean waited in the yard, because  _his_ goal, his monster, was right here. But Bobby was still here, watching him, and Dean felt his stride stuttering to a halt.

He didn't know what he saw in Bobby's eyes, but he knew what he would see in Dad's. They had had the argument enough times that Dean didn't argue anymore when Dad brought it up, just nodded his head and let it go and stopped talking about Sam for a while—as long as he could help himself, before he forgot again—but it would always come up again. Then Dad would say another few words about how he had to stop caring so much for a monster, that monsters were always dangerous, no matter how innocent and safe they seemed. Dean was grateful that Dad couldn't sustain an argument by himself. With someone else to fight, he could go forever, and usually it ended with them getting kicked out of wherever they were, or losing another friend, another contact—more than once Dean had thought that Dad would never talk with Bobby or Caleb again, and he barely remembered a handful of other hunters who had seemed decent but Dad hadn't spoken to in years—but when Dean just shut up, Dad didn't seem able to sustain the anger, or the concern. There was only one thing that Dad could lock his rage onto, and it had never been Dean.

"You looking for that monster?" Bobby asked.

That was how the arguments with Dad started too. Dean met Bobby's eyes. Bobby wasn't Dad. Dean didn't know how he would deal with the argument from someone other than Dad. No one else—other than the guards who Dean didn't give a damn about—had ever noticed. "His name's Sam," Dean said. "But, yeah."

Bobby ran a hand over his head. "Kid..." he started.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam come around the corner at a trot. He tried not to look. He had never fought with Dad at Freak Camp—John tried to keep an absolutely united front against other hunters—but he had long ago decided that there was no way in hell that he would get Sam involved in this. 

Bobby saw Sam at the same time. Dean had to look up. He couldn't just let Bobby look at Sam without acknowledging him.

He kept himself between other hunters, other guards, and Sam, and he knew that he would step between Sam and his dad too. And if he would do that to family, he knew without a doubt that he would get between Sam and Bobby. He looked up as Bobby did and stepped slightly away from him, toward Sam. 

Sam didn't stop, didn't seem to see Bobby. Dean looked at him and couldn't stop the smile from rising on his face, had to fist his hand around his bag strap to stop himself from reaching out.

His heart jumped when a bright smile lit up Sam's face, wider than Dean had ever seen, so big he could actually see a flash of teeth. In that moment, Sam looked  _happy_ , just like any other kid. Then Sam's eyes slid to Bobby, saw how close they stood, and in a second the smile and all his emotion vanished, wiped clean from his face. Dean knew that they hadn't gone away, that the emotions were still inside of Sam somewhere, but looking at his blank face, skin peeling a little bit from the eternal sunburn, it was hard to imagine ever finding that smile again. Sam stopped, suddenly hesitant and unwilling to come any closer. He looked down at his feet and then to the side, as though trying to convince anyone watching that his earlier enthusiasm had just been an illusion, something unreal and unimportant.

Dean glanced quickly around. A couple guards were watching and smiling. In that second he hated them, and almost hated Bobby, for seeing how much Sam meant to him, and he meant to Sam.

~*~

Bobby looked at the monster that he guessed was Sam. Damn, the kid looked maybe ten, and thin enough that Bobby could fold him in the bag with his rifles.

Bobby didn't like monsters, didn't like Freak Camp, didn't like many of the new hunters who got their money directly from the state and were in it for bounties. He knew, better than most, that a man could love a monster—he still missed his wife, still could remember the exact moment he had been forced to pull the trigger when she was possessed, and he still regretted that he hadn't known how to save her at the time. He hated monsters, hated them with a passion that he didn't like to look at too closely—but that kid didn't look like he could threaten a fly.

And the way he had smiled at Dean, for just a second before it fell off his face like water off an oiled cloth, stabbed Bobby's heart in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.

"That's Sam?" he asked. He didn't miss the way that Dean had stepped a little bit away from him, toward the other kid. He wondered if he and John had argued about this very often, if the kid ever put up any kind of fight with his father. Bobby argued with John enough that he found it hard to believe that anyone could live with the man and not want to knock his skull open so that some sense might creep in. But even at his angriest, Dean practically worshiped the ground John walked on.

Dean nodded. He couldn't seem to decide where to put his eyes - on Sam, on the guards who were subtly watching them, or on Bobby. "Yeah." He straightened his shoulders and finally met Bobby's eyes. "He's Sam."

Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby could see the tension in the monster's shoulders. He thought Dean could too. Bobby took a good grip on his nerves and looked at the kid.

The monster wouldn't look him in the eye. Fuck, the  _boy_ wouldn't look at him. Bobby raised a hand. "Come here, kid."

Sam came immediately, without hesitating, keeping his eyes locked on his feet like he was sure that if he didn't watch them they would do something he didn't want them to. He carefully didn't look at Dean, while Dean didn't take his eyes off Sam's face for a second.

"Look at me," Bobby said.

Sam looked up, but not in his eyes. His gaze locked somewhere in the area of Bobby's left ear and stayed there.

Bobby almost lifted a hand to touch Sam's face, to try to make the kid look him in the eye, but lowered it even before Dean could start moving between them, the beginnings of anger and guilt mixed up on his face. Bobby couldn't touch the kid because of the way his eyes had changed from emptiness to...Bobby couldn't even describe it. He had seen a shifter's eyes flash on video footage, he had watched more than one demon's eyes change into depthless black or red, but what happened on Sam's face was worse than all of that because it was completely human. Not just empty, hopeless, but prepared. He hadn't even flinched, hadn't moved at all, but those eyes said,  _Go ahead, I know you're going to hit me. But you can't really touch me, no matter how much it hurts._

There were demons that had been in Special Research for years that didn't have eyes like that.

"Bobby," Dean said. "Don't..." He bit his lip, and then glared. Bobby saw more than a little of his dad in him. Which half made him proud, and half made him want to smack him.

Bobby wished that he could see Dean excited again. Since all the shit had gone down when John had rescued him from Protective Services using his hunter ID, Dean had been angry, subdued in a way that he couldn't express except by running, using Bobby's junker cars for target practice—not that the kid needed any more practice with a gun or a knife—and drifting around the house like a restless spirit. Even though it had been about a monster, a kid that could grow up to be one of the dangerous things Bobby put down without hesitation every day—no matter what or who they looked like—it would have been good for Dean to be out of his funk for a little longer.

"I'm not going to do anything to him, Dean," Bobby said. He glanced at Sam. "You. Stand back there for a second."

"Yes, sir." Sam retreated, though he didn't turn his back. Bobby got the feeling that he was watching every move and trying very hard not to be seen doing it.

Bobby pulled Dean aside. "Dean, he looks like a good kid, and he's never tried to hurt you, right?"

Dean was outraged. "Dammit, Bobby, he's never even come close. Why can't you just understand—"

Bobby held up a hand and managed to cut Dean off. If only that worked as well with John. "They're monsters, kid. You know that every single freak in this camp did something, had something wrong with them, or off about them, or was a threat in some way. That's why they're here."

"Sam didn't do anything!" Dean's voice was rising, but he caught it, stuffed it back down, glancing at the guards, and then glaring at Bobby. "Sam didn't do anything!" he hissed. "He got dropped here before fucking kindergarten and he doesn't remember anything, and how can he be a monster?"

"He says he doesn't remember anything," Bobby said. "That doesn't mean nothing happened. Werewolves—"

"Sam's not a werewolf, not a vamp, not a psychic or a witch or any damn thing that they can pin a title on, he's just Sam, and sure, he's here, but that doesn't mean—"

"Dean." Bobby was mildly surprised when just saying the kid's name worked. Maybe he was channeling John. Chilling thought. "He's  _here_."

Dean looked down. "That doesn't mean everything."

Bobby glanced at the sullen teenager in front of him and the silent hopeless boy standing just out of earshot. He could almost believe that Dean knew what he was talking about. But he was just barely fourteen, for crying out loud.

But hell, John had abandoned his son to CPS, and Bobby had made his share of mistakes. They were well over Dean's age, and they were still making mistakes. Bobby just hoped that this wouldn't be another one of his. 

"Hell," he said at last. "I'm going to Special Research. Do you want to come with me?" Not that Bobby wanted Dean anywhere near that place. It was enough to make him sick to his stomach. The longer Dean went without being exposed to that part of hunter life, the better. He felt relieved when Dean shook his head, even though he could feel the bitterness rolling off of him.

"Dean," he said, and the boy looked up. Damn, but that kid was as stubborn as his father, but Bobby was pretty sure that his heart was in a healthier place. "I know that you're going to hang around with that kid, probably give him the candy that you have in your bag, right?"

Dean's face closed down, got stubborn and angry. "Maybe, sir."

 _No maybe about it_ , Bobby thought, but didn't say it out loud. The kid didn't need to know that he could read him like a book, and he was no frickin' feudal Japanese, either. "Watch yourself, Dean. Be careful."

Dean relaxed, just a little bit. Bobby wondered if that was something that John said before he left, before he showed Dean that he trusted him. "I always am, sir." He sounded confident, but sad. He knew from recent experience that sometimes being careful wasn't enough.

Bobby wished he could explain to Dean that John wasn't angry at him, but at himself, and that Winchester had never been very good at channeling his personal self-loathing and rage onto the people and objects that deserved it, but he didn't think that Dean could understand. He had never been responsible for anyone but himself—and maybe sometimes for his father—never felt the kind of possessive, absent, integral love that John had for him even when he was doing a piss-poor job of showing it. "You do good, kid." Bobby hesitated, glanced at Sam, and then walked away.

~*~

Dean breathed half a sigh of relief when Bobby moved away. He had felt the argument growing, had known that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from defending Sam, and would probably have forced Bobby to grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag his ass out of camp—which wouldn’t have helped—and then they would have fought. Dean thought sometimes that it would be nice to fight with someone about Sam. He still hadn’t quite been able to get to that point with Dad. There was always something in him that thought his dad knew best, his dad knew how to keep him alive, and he should really be listening to him.

And, of course there was the fact that Dad wasn’t talking to him, was so fucking ashamed of how he had behaved with the whole Child Services thing that he had left and probably wouldn’t be coming back for a long time.

But now Bobby was gone, and there was nothing to stop him from turning back to Sam.

Sam watched the hunter leaving, eyes wide, expression tense, but Dean could see how his eyes were flickering back to his face, around to see where the guards were.

The nervous energy between them reminded Dean a little bit of when he and Dad weren’t talking. Except he knew that he and Sam were in the conspiracy together.

They both waited until Bobby had gone around a corner on his way to Special Research, and then they simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. Sam started and stared, but Dean laughed. It was good, damn good, to be around someone else who wasn’t an adult, someone who also got nervous and uncertain around them.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said.

Sam gave him a nervous, watery smile, and Dean couldn’t stop the answering one on his face. He wished that Sam would look as happy again as he had when he had first seen Dean coming, but he figured that was too much to hope for. He rarely got to see Sam excited. Dean blamed the place and the people of Freak Camp. There was only so much emotion that someone could have in a prison, Dean knew that now. And he supposed that Sam had been there so long that he couldn’t even manage anger anymore. Though Dean thought that maybe he could stay angry for both of them if he had to.

“Come here,” Dean said, gesturing, and Sam followed him to the edge of a barracks. Dean turned his back so that he was blocking the guard’s view of Sam, so that no one could see his lips moving. He didn’t know if any of the guards were lip readers, but he had decided that it was enough of a possibility that he should take no chances.

“I have something I want to tell you,” Dean said.

Sam blinked rapidly and ducked his head. “What—what is it, Dean? Your dad…”

Dean waved him off. “No, this isn’t about Dad. This is…”  _this is me realizing than you shouldn’t be here any more, than no one as good as you should ever get locked up like I was_ , “something completely different.”

“Okay,” Sam whispered. He wasn’t looking up. His hands were folded tightly over each other as though he was bracing himself for the blow.

Dean wanted Sam to look at him. He wanted Sam to believe him. Because no one else did, but of all the people in his life, Sam was the one that Dean wanted to believe him when he was telling him the truth, because Sam was the one who most deserved it.

He reached out, grabbed Sam’s face and tilted it up. “I’m gonna get you out of here, Sam,” he said. “I’m going to get you out of Freak Camp if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Sam stared, dumbfounded. He blinked a couple times and then shook his head, hard, as though he couldn’t believe anything that he had just heard.

“D-D-Dean, don’t joke about…” he started. Dean saw he was starting to breathe hard, and were those tears…? “Please don’t say things—“

“Sam, I’m going to get you out.” Sam had to believe him. Suddenly, in Dean’s young life that was the one thing that he had to make very very clear to Sam. Because he had let down a lot of people recently, but Sam had to believe that Dean would never let him down as long as there was one breath in his body. As long as he could stop his own fuck-upedness, he would do this one thing. “That’s not me fucking with you, Sam. That’s a promise.”

Sam stared. “Dean…you can’t. I mean, I know you’ll try, but you can’t take a monster out. And I’m just…”

“I’m going to do it, Sammy. Just you watch. I gave you my word, didn’t I?”  _And you don’t deserve to be here any longer._

“Yes, Dean. I just don’t…” Sam shook his head, and then took a deep breath. When he looked up, those were tears in his eyes, but Dean could see that there wasn’t a trace of doubt, of the vague panic that had been in his eyes before. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “It’s hard…”

“You don’t have to believe,” Dean said. “Because I’m going to make it happen, and then it won’t be a fucking fairy tale, it’ll be real.” And once Sam was out, Dean would make sure that he was safe forever. He would make damn sure that no one would ever be able to make Sam afraid.

And everyone else could go to hell, as long as he had Sam.

~*~

Hours after Dean disappeared from sight with the other hunter, his words rang in Sam's ears.  _I'm going to get you out, Sammy._ They made Sam's heart pound so fast it ached, and he had to close his eyes and take steady breaths to make sure he didn't show anything that would raise questions from other monsters or the guards. But he had a secret, a wildly wonderful secret that was all his, that was the best thing to happen to him in his entire life. He had to bite his lip hard to keep from laughing in Karl's face when he made the rounds through the mess hall at dinner. None of them knew, and of course they could never know or they'd do their best to stop it. Not that they, or anyone, could stop Dean when he swore he was going to do something. But they might make it harder, make it take longer.

Dean had warned him anyway it wouldn't be fast, he may not be able to get him out for a while. Sam understood. Monsters didn't leave Freak Camp—not through the front gates, anyway, only through the incinerator—not unless they were going to be bait for a special hunt. But that's not what Dean had meant. Sam was sure of that. Dean was going to take him out, and then—Sam honestly had no idea what would happen then, what Dean would do with him, but he was sure that wherever Dean put him, he would visit at least as often as he did now with Sam in Freak Camp. And nothing, nothing could be worse than Freak Camp. Sam was sure of that.

He had never imagined he'd be able to escape Karl, Victor, and Crusher—he felt even more frightened of Crusher, even more anxious to avoid eye contact or his attention, sure he'd be able to tell the secret nearly bursting inside Sam—and all the guards and hunters who walked through camp and looked at Sam as though sizing him up for what size hook he'd best fit on.

He was going to leave. He really was. Dean had promised. That night, in the dark barracks, Sam bit down hard on his fist to contain the uncontrollable grin on his face, the mad desire to laugh and laugh until he couldn't breathe, until someone held a pillow over his face to make him stop. He couldn't let that happen now.

Because a promise always involved two people - him and Dean - and he had to do his best to stay alive until Dean could take him out.


	6. Chapter 6

Occasionally, when Dean and Dad came to Freak Camp, they saw other hunters, either entering or leaving the facility.

Sometimes they chatted, and sometimes Dad made it clear that he hated their guts.

This time the other hunter was Henry Miller, and he was sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the Reception lobby, the sharp-faced, dark-haired secretary—Deborah, Dean thought her name was—sitting across from him, handing him paperwork. A shapeshifter—clearly a Freak Camp inmate by the gray clothes and the bright green tag in its arm—sat in the chair next to the hunter. It wore the shape of a young, bony blond woman and couldn’t seem to keep its head upright. The eyes sliding slowly toward the Winchesters seemed unable to focus on anything, and it was so unnerving that Dean reached for his knife almost involuntarily.

“What the hell are you doing here, Miller?” John snapped. It had been a rough drive; he’d gotten his leg cut up a few weeks ago, and, even though Dean had offered, he hadn’t wanted to let him drive. Dean understood that it would just be a hassle to get pulled over because he was driving underage—not that he didn’t do a  _lot_ of stuff underage that maybe the cops, in some states, would have just as much problem with (like how he decided a few months ago that while girls were awfully fun, the right kind of boys could be a great time too, and they often had a knack for things most girls didn't get)—but he still didn’t like that Dad had been in that kind of pain for the entire drive.

If Henry gave a damn that John was in a bad mood, he didn’t show it. Instead he grinned up at the Winchesters, hand poised over his paperwork. The secretary glared at him.

As though noticing the change of focus in the room, the shifter in the chair moved weakly. Henry turned and hit it hard between the ribs, making it cringe and cough. That’s when Dean noticed the sturdy silver chain binding the monster both to the table and to Miller’s belt.

“Just checking out a monster, Winchester,” Henry replied. “I’m hunting a nest of Bray Road Beasts up near Elkhorn, and those things are like sharks, you throw a little blood in the ground, and they’ll come straight for you. Sure beats trudging up and down rural Wisconsin trying to dig up the little fuckers' nest.”

John glanced at the shifter and then back to the other hunter’s face. “That’s sick, Miller.”

Henry slapped the shifter across the shoulder, more affectionately this time. “Not like I’m using a civvie, Winchester, so don’t get your panties in a twist. Shifter blood and human blood smells about the same to those little Roadies. And—at least until I’m a little bit slow on the gun—this shiftie will probably keep me warm and entertained up in those crap backwoods hotels. Can you believe that they don’t have cable in some of those shitholes?”

Dean stared. This was a hunter, taking a monster out of FREACS. Granted, it didn’t look like the guy was getting the shifter out for anything close to the same reasons that Dean wanted to get Sam out—it made Dean a little sick to think that  _anyone_  would get a monster out just to kill them and screw them beforehand—but just knowing that it really was possible, what he had promised Sam so long ago, untwisted something inside him, made him happier, even as John clearly got more and more pissed.

His face was stony. “And you think that’s going to convince me you’re  _not_ a sick bastard?”

Henry’s expression never changed. “We can’t all be hunting demi-gods, Winchester. And besides, Bray Roads bring in a pretty decent bounty. I don’t need your approval when I’ve got Campbell cash.”

John nodded at the drugged shifter. “You’re basically  _working_ with a monster, Miller.”

Henry laugh and handed his finished pile of papers to Deborah. “Don’t worry, Winchester, the freak will end up dead eventually. Just might take a bit more time than you, or she, would like.”

As though aware they were talking about her, the shapeshifter moved in her chair and made a low, pained noise. Henry scowled at her, and looked over at the window where the secretary was sorting the newly signed forms. “Can I get a little more tranquilizer in my freak, here? I don’t want her conscious enough to put up a fight until I can get her into my trunk.”

“Come on, Dean,” Dad said, jerking his head toward the door. “I’m sure Miller and his freak will be very happy together.”

“Fuck yourself, Winchester,” the other hunter called.

John ignored him—if he got angry at all the people who told him to fuck himself, he wouldn’t have the time to be angry at people who questioned his judgment or had different opinions—and Dean barely glanced at the other hunter, even though he really wanted to crane his head over to the paperwork that Miller had signed. He wanted to see if he could figure out what he had to do to get Sam out.

Probably he would have to be a licensed hunter, which meant even the possibility was  _ages_ away. Maybe he could convince Dad to sign for some of the paperwork, if he asked the right way.

But as they walked through the hallways of Reception, Dean had to admit that convincing Dad to get Sam out wasn’t very likely - but a kid could dream, couldn’t he? And he hated the idea of Sam stuck in Freak Camp longer than he had to be.

At least Dad was trusting him again, letting him help on hunts. Really help, too, not just leaving Dean in the Impala as a lookout and get-away driver. Dad had put his faith in Dean, had given him a shotgun and brought him along to watch his back. He didn’t leave him alone in crappy hotel rooms quite so often, either. Dean knew this was still at least partly because of how he had scared everyone with the whole CPS thing, but it felt good, like he and Dad were partners. And more than once, Dean felt that he had helped prevent Dad from getting seriously injured, saving him while together they saved the civvies. They were a good team, and Dean tried not to mess that up by talking about Sam too much.

At least, as much as he could help.

“You seeing that monster?” John asked as they stepped out into the chilly fall air.

Dean shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. He had brought apples today, the biggest ones he could find in the gas station. He’d been bringing Sam chocolate the last few times, and even though  _he_ preferred chocolate to apples, he knew that Sam loved fruit. He’d brought a bag of chips as well, just because he’d found it in the back seat when he was reaching back for the knife he always brought with him into FREACS.

"Yeah," he answered. "Probably."

John scowled. "I don't get the fascination," he said. "You like Miller back there?"

Dean gaped at him. "Dad, gross, no!" He shifted uncomfortably, not sure if Dad was talking about staking Sam out for another monster to grab him, or Miller's sick comments, but either way,  _hell no_.

"Because at least I'd understand that," John continued. He glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye. He didn't have to look down quite as far anymore; Dean had been shooting up like a weed in the last few months. "I mean, I know you've been enjoying yourself, Dean, in the last few towns...and it would at least be a  _reason_."

"Dad!" Dean could not believe that they were having this talk, bringing up this idea at  _Freak Camp_  of all places. He fidgeted and looked around, trying to make sure than none of the guards were watching. Because, hell, just Dad asking that was awkward enough without knowing that any of the sick fucks who guarded the monsters were listening. "Sir, it's not like that."

John stared. "Well, I guess that's something. Winchesters don't fuck freaks," he said. Then he shook his head, visibly brushing off the conversation. "I'm in Intensive Containment today. Won't be long. Try not to get to distracted with...whatever you do." 

“Yes, sir!” Dean called, not sure if he should feel insulted, if he should run after Dad and promise him that it _wasn't like that_ , but by the time he had made a decision on the matter, John was already gone.

It took Dean several minutes to find Sam. True, he wasn't as focused as usual, when if he couldn't spot Sam immediately, he got a nearby guard to radio for him. Today he walked slowly around the yard, watching a few passing monsters turn their heads sharply away from him. He looked at the row of posts, spaced apart in the yard with cuffs dangling from the tops. He wondered how many times he had walked past them without ever noticing them or realizing why they were there.

Sometime since he was ten, this had become the place he most looked forward to returning to—because it meant he would see Sam again. He loved Dad and he loved hunting (they saved people), but sometimes it felt like their life, his life, was nothing more than an endless progression of rundown motels, abandoned shacks, waste-of-time schools, and con stories fooling everyone into thinking they were someone they weren't. Didn't much matter if they were in Maine or Texas - hunts and monsters were anywhere. And even the hunts blurred together. A violent spirit wasn't much different from a wendigo in the end.

Only Sam was different from all of them. Sam was special, because Sam was always the same person. Dean could mention a hunt he and Dad had done in Las Vegas (that turned out, awkwardly, to be not a shapeshifter but a businessman with a double-life as a transvestite BDSM prostitute), and Sam would laugh because he _remembered_. He loved talking to Sam, but more than that, they had stories and a history together. Dean supposed that he and Dad had history in Lawrence, Kansas, where they had lived before Mom died, but that history was old and dead, like Mom, and they had never been back since she died. Sam was the only thing in Dean's life that he looked forward to seeing again. That was why, he guessed, his heart jumped anytime he heard someone say _Freak Camp_ , why he always hoped his father would find another reason to go back soon.

But now, standing in the middle of its yard, he realized he hated the place. It made his skin crawl, and he felt dirty and gross just by being there, like when that tentacle monster in Florida had tried to fight him off using its own saliva.

"D-Dean!"

He turned quickly, to see Sam standing against the wall of the mess hall, arms crossed over his abdomen and hands clutching his thin blue jacket. He was looking up at Dean—sort of, more like peeking up through his hair—but there wasn't a trace of the usual smile he had when first seeing Dean. He looked worried, even frightened.

"Sam." Dean started toward him, then checked himself, glancing around to see if any of the guards or monsters were watching. Immediately he felt a surge of irritation. When the hell had he ever cared before? He didn't have a single fucking thing to be ashamed of. Scowling, he moved forward to Sam's side. "Hey, Sam."

Sam seemed to attempt to fold in on himself, tucking his chin in, though still peeking up at Dean every few seconds. He didn't say anything else.

Dean sighed, shaking his head once, then reached in his pocket for the crumpled bag of chips. "Brought these for you." He couldn't summon his usual enthusiasm when giving Sam something or his interest in talking to him, and he thought,  _Fuck Miller_. Before they'd walked into Reception, he'd been looking forward to seeing Sam just as much as ever.

"Th-thanks." Sam held the bag between his hands but didn't open it, still twisting anxiously. Then he blurted out, without looking up, "Are—are you okay?"

Dean blew out his breath and slid down against the wall to sit on the ground. "Yeah, Sam." He patted the earth next to him. "It's okay, I promise—I've just got some shit on my mind. Nothing to do with you. Go ahead and eat."

Sam dropped to his knees next to him, but still only fingered the top of the bag until Dean began telling him about this monster he and Dad had dealt with in northern California that, kid you not, had possessed a deadly fart attack. At least three civvie hunters had ended up in the hospital, mauled and knocked out, because of the thing. No knowing how many people had just been eaten. He and Dad had taken the thing out, but it had taken a week and a half of tromping through the woods to find its nest.

"We wore  _noseplugs_  the whole trip, Sammy. Dad's nose looked, like, twice the size. It was ridiculous!"

Sam relaxed gradually, eating each chip with care and relish, laughing at the funny parts and slowly fixing his eyes more confidently on Dean's face. And as Sam relaxed, Dean felt better too, more and more like whatever the hell Miller thought or Dad thought, it wasn't true and didn't matter when he was here with Sam, laughing about monsters and hunts, sharing a bag of chips and an apple.

All the same, Dean stopped himself from leaning over to bump his shoulder against Sam's. With Dad's words drifting in his ears, it just didn't seem  _right_. Even though he couldn't pin down what would be wrong about it.

True to his warning, John Winchester was out of Intensive Containment in less than an hour. Dean was glad that a guard found him and told him that his father was looking for him. Dean didn't want John to see them together, not now.

The thought made him feel horrible, and he didn't know why he felt  _that_ either.

"I'll see you later, Sam," he said, standing up and shoving the empty chip bag into his pocket.

Sam whispered something that sounded like  _I hope so_ , and Dean stopped, turning to really look at him. Sam hadn't stood up again and was looking down at his hands.

"What you say, Sammy?" Dean asked. He grinned, but there wasn't a lot of heart in it. "I maybe got one of those noseplugs stuck in my ears."

Sam looked up. "I hope you come soon. I just...yeah."

That hadn't really been what it sounded like the first time. It had sounded like Sam didn't expect him to come back at all.

Dean didn't think he could stay away. He'd walk back to Freak Camp, if he had to. "I'll always be back, Sammy. It's a promise." Dean smiled, almost reached out to ruffle his hair, but thought he heard John approaching. He turned away.

Dean thought he could feel Sam's eyes on the back of his head the whole way out of camp, but when he turned around again, just to check, Sam was staring at his hands.

~*~

In addition to not much liking the entire FREACS institution, Bobby didn’t so much like the Campbells. They were, in general, dicks, even Gwen who didn’t technically have one. Maybe it was something about the hunting lifestyle combined with a certain obsessive, possessive family dynamic.

Hunting was, traditionally, a violent, unpaid, loner occupation that gradually made a man more and more paranoid about small sounds, shadows, electrical failures, and small inconsistencies in human behavior. It was a combination that yielded paranoid nuts and excellent liars, but rarely a respectable, mild-mannered 9-to-5 family man. Bobby thought hunters were generally smart-assed assholes—himself included—and it worked down from there. On an individual basis, he probably would rather kill things with fellow hunters than make small talk because—let’s face it—all that most hunters had to hold onto was the soul-grinding, madness-inducing job.

Combine hunting with an absolute belief in the importance and sanctity of family, and you had an entire group of gun-wielding, pathological liars who tended to shoot first and ask questions later—if at all.

The fact that the Campbells were damn good just made them arrogant sons of bitches to boot.

But even if he disliked them for the way they dismissed everyone who wasn’t also a Campbell, and how they had kids like Gwen—maybe a couple years older than Dean—handling shotguns and salt packages almost as soon as they could walk, he wasn't about to back down when they needed him.

“We could use your help, Singer,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Rugaru, Black Creek. Available?”

Bobby recognized the voice as a Campbell more by subject matter and the use of “we” than anything else. “Yeah, give me…” He did a quick calculation in his head - ”two hours?”

“Yeah, good. We’ll wait for you. You can reach me at this payphone. Ready for the number?” The Campbell rattled off a number, and Bobby took it down.

When he arrived at Black Creek, it was the early afternoon, so he stopped at the bar that actually had cars in the parking lot, too many for a usual crowd of noon-drinkers.

Walking in, he almost got shot by some hot-headed young hunter—a sandy-haired kid, not a Campbell himself, but a trainee from the Campbell’s institutionalized training system, judging by how he had both jumped in surprise and responded automatically with the shotgun. The kid was new. If Bobby  _had_ been a monster, he would have been able to rip the kid’s throat out before he got to the weapon.

Lucas Campbell snaked out a hand and jerked the kid's elbow before he could send a shot into Bobby's chest, but the kid still pulled the trigger while the gun swung wildly. Two other young hunters—neither one a Campbell, they didn't have the physical features or the easy arrogance—dove for cover behind the bar. The gun clicked empty—the idiot had gone for a gun that wasn't even  _loaded?_ —but Bobby still had to work to stop his heart from beating out of his chest. If the gun  _had_  been loaded, it would have blown a rock-salt hole through the bottles on the back of the bar, and might have taken off one of the other hunters' heads.

Lucas just sighed and pushed the mortified kid away from him while the two older hunters in the room—both clearly Campbells from their similar facial structure and the easy way they stood with their weapons—looked disgusted.

“That’s Singer,” Lucas said. “Better not shoot him.” Bobby recognized his voice now as the one from the phone call and felt old. Lucas had been a snot-nosed brat first time they met—right after the White House Massacre when various Campbells had gone around to the other hunters they knew, basically asking them to join up. Bobby had said thanks but no thanks, he didn’t want to join any damn club. Which was kind of a lie, given how often other hunters used his house as a safehouse or research resource, but Samuel had understood.

“How’d he find us?” asked one of the other trainees, a girl with two long brown braids. Bobby decided he wasn’t going to ask their names. Seemed like they would be dead in a couple years anyway, once they came off the Campbell training leash, if not before. That question just hadn’t been that bright.

“He’s a hunter,” one of the Campbells laughed. “What do you think?” He had crooked teeth that flashed in the dim light.

“Magic,” the other, taller Campbell agreed.

Lucas was playing the Good Leader and keeping his mouth shut—usually a smart-ass, Bobby remembered—but he was smiling and not doing much to control his team.

“There’s a lot of cars in the parking lot for this time of day,” Bobby said. “And hunters tend to meet at bars and not, say, beauty parlors.”

“Not me, Singer,” Lucas said. “I was all for Chic Cuts, but got outvoted.”

“Come on, Singer, you got to ruin a bit of fun?” the tall Campbell asked.

Bobby ignored him. “This is an awful lot of people for one rugaru.”

Crooked-Teeth grinned again. “You wouldn’t even be here, old man, if it wasn’t for the noobs.”

Lucas shrugged. “Don’t worry, Singer, you’ll get your share of the bounty.” Bobby opened his mouth to say that wasn’t what he’d been concerned about, but Lucas ignored him and kept talking. “Frankly, I called you in because we think it has help. There haven’t been any deaths yet, which is weird given how this freak’s bloodwork came back from the lab. Bastard thought he had some kind of stomach infection, got it checked out, and we got the intel. But since then, there’s been  _nothing_. We don’t know if this freak’s been eating homeless guys or if he’s still looking human, and we don’t know why there isn't more information coming in.”

“I’ve never heard of a rugaru running in packs or communities,” Bobby said.

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed. “So….backup. Serious, professional backup.” He grinned. “After all, you may not be family, Singer, but you’re damn good.”

 _Only Campbells_ , Bobby thought. Only Campbells could piss him off this much with the way they gave him a compliment.

“Tell me what you’ve got,” he said.

Lucas laid out the information and the fairly basic plan with typical Campbell efficiency and meticulous care to detail. Four hunters in through the back, three through the front, spreading out as they went until they got the monster.

“We think the wife may be involved,” he said. “Helping the freak.”

“Like a Renfield, just for a rugaru and not a vamp,” said Crooked-Teeth. “Christ, what a thought.”

“Yeah, I don’t really want to believe it either, but there’s freak-lovers out there,” Lucas said. “Remember, if something attacks, you shoot it on sight. If it keeps coming, torch it. I want the freak alive for the bounty, preferably—rugarus are rare, and we could use any new info—but I don’t want anybody doing something stupid to get a live capture. It’s just money, info, and glory, folks, but not quite worth losing hunters.”

Everyone nodded. The Campbells with boredom, the newbies with sincerity or eagerness. If one of them didn’t do something stupid trying to get the bounty, Bobby would buy himself a drink.

The actual attack went down surpisingly professionally. The kids followed the Campbell’s lead quietly, efficiently, and the all-too-human-looking rugaru barely had a chance to take one swing at its attackers—Lucas, who dodged the blow easily—before the other hunters filled it with tranquilizer darts.

The wife came home from shopping while they were securing the rugaru. Research was minimal, so Lucas had them use twine, iron, silk, copper, silver, catgut and little plastic zip-ties. The wife stepped through her door, saw what they were doing to her husband and dropped the bag full of neat packages of freshly butchered meat.

Bobby was in the kitchen, finding shelves and shelves of carefully wrapped raw steaks in the refrigerator and freezer, when he heard the screaming and two shotgun blasts. He ran, expecting to hear the flamethrower any second, but when he got to the living room where they had been securing the unchanged rugaru, the monster was still safely down with the tranquilizers. Instead, one of the newbie hunters was splayed across the couch, gasping in agony at a hole in his chest big enough to fit a cantaloupe. The wife, wispy brown hair flying around her enraged face, had a smoking shotgun.

“What are you doing to him?” she screamed. “I want you to get your hands off my husband! Let him go!” She swung the shotgun around, and Bobby prayed he would get there in time.

He shouldn’t have bothered worrying, because Lucas, who had been securing the upstairs, was just suddenly _there_ , pulling the gun out of her hands, breaking the arm she swung at him and kicking in one of her knees. When she went down, keening from pain and rage, but still trying to go for Lucas’s eyes with her good hand, Crooked-Teeth Campbell emptied his clip of tranquilizers into her back.

Lucas stood, pushing back his hair with his free hand. “Fucking freak-lover,” he said. “They’re worse than freaks, sometimes.”

The taller Campbell—who had been tucking the young, dead hunter into a body bag and gagging and muzzling the unconscious rugaru, looked up. “So, what do we do with the bitch?” he asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the woman. “I suppose we can’t just shoot her now?”

Lucas shot him a look and turned to the two young hunter trainees who looked horrified and not a little shell-shocked, staring from the monster to the woman to the bag that held their comrade-in-arms. Bobby wanted to say something comforting to them, but didn’t know what he could say that wouldn’t be either a lie or useless. This was part of hunting life. Even if you were lucky, people you knew died. If you were unlucky, it was the people who mattered the most. 

“Two stretchers,” Lucas said to them.

The kids, looking grateful for a direction, practically ran for the door.

When they were out of earshot, Lucas turned back to his cousin. “We’ll dump her in with the roogy,” he said. “If the tranqs don’t kill her and he doesn’t kill her, we’ll let Freak Camp deal with her.”

Bobby felt the panicked sweat—brought on by the adrenaline of gunshots and hunts—chill instantly on his skin. He knew what happened at Freak Camp. Usually he tried not to think about it. “”She’s human,” he said. “We know she’s human.”

Lucas shrugged. “Can’t be  _sure_  till we get her to SR, can we?” He didn’t say it like he expected Bobby to believe it. He was just sharing the line they used for civilians, so that everyone could keep their stories straight.

“You son of a bitch,” Bobby said. Lucas raised an eyebrow, and the other two Campbells paused in their quiet cleaning activities, turning slightly to keep their eyes on him, ready for trouble. Bobby would have been an idiot to ignore the way their hands drifted to their guns. “She’s  _human_.”

Lucas threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do, Singer? You want me to just dump her with local police, have her telling them some shit story about how armed strangers came in, beat her, and stole her husband? Legislation against freak-lovers ain't what it should be - they might take the bitch’s word, and then ASC’s gonna have to get into it with local law enforcement, and somewhere along the way we’re going to have to drag her through the legal system for shooting that kid over a  _freak_. I mean, she’s guilty as hell of sheltering a freak, assaulting an officer of the law, and pissing off the Campbells. Faster, easier, less of a hassle for everyone just to dump her in with the freaks she loves. See if she still loves them when she sees what they really are.”

“You do this a lot, Lucas?” Bobby asked.

He shrugged. “They’re all monsters, Singer. Don’t care if they’re supernatural freaks or fucking them. World’s a safer place with less of this shit on the street. You going to be a problem?”

The worst part, Bobby thought, was that Lucas wasn’t wrong. It was awful, and he had to fight the bile down his throat thinking about that woman going to Freak Camp, but every single word out of Lucas' mouth had made sense. And Bobby knew that he wasn’t going to win this fight, not when he would have shot the woman in the head if he had been in the room while she was turning the shotgun on his team.

“Don’t call me again, Lucas,” Bobby said. “Not when there could be civilians involved.” 

“Freak-lover,” Lucas corrected, “not civilian. But I’ll pass the word along. Thanks for this time. I’m guessing you won’t help put the bitch in the van?” He grinned.

Ah, there was the sense of humor that Bobby remembered wanting to smack out of the snot-nosed kid. “Fuck yourself, Campbell.”

The Campbells laughed, just as the two surviving kids came back in, each one fitting a stretcher awkwardly through the door. They looked confused and horrified, but didn’t ask about the joke.

“Not today, Bobby,” Lucas answered. “There’s folk that do that for me. Bye!” He waved, while Bobby walked stiffly out the door, feeling sick. He didn’t look at the Campbells, the rugaru, the woman, the kids or the darkening stain where one of their team had bled out his life.

 _Maybe the tranqs will stop her heart before she gets to FREACS,_ he thought.  _That would be a mercy._

After all, the tranquilizers had been designed to bring down a full rugaru. No one knew what they would do to a real, non-supernatural human.

He buried the little thought that said that there was no way in hell that that comfort should satisfy him.

~*~

Sam scrubbed himself, hard, and carefully did not look back to where Crusher and Victor were leaning against each other companionably, talking about the witch next to him, a brown-haired woman who had come maybe two days before and still didn't know how to clean herself with just one hand.

"Little bitty chicken legs," Victor said. "Fuck, she's fresh meat and almost as bony as the other freaks. Might look good with a few stripes. Have some color then, at least."

"It's not the legs, Vic, it's what's up them," Crusher said, rubbing a hand down his billy club. "Think she's hot?"

Hard to ignore the words, to keep the rough soap moving over his back without flinching or responding, but it was vital not to react, not to let the guards notice. If it had been any other pair, the joking would have been just as bad, but the threat would have been minimal, because most guards, even those who helped themselves to the monsters, wouldn't do it in front of another man, wouldn't do it in the showers during scrub duty.

But Victor and Crusher liked each other, and shared enough of the same tastes that they could spread some poor fuck's legs or get sucked off in sight of each other and just enjoy it more.

Victor put his club in its holster, unzipped his pants, cupping himself. "Come on, sweetie," he called. "You hot enough to get me off from here, or am I going to have to give you a ride?"

The witch stared at him with horror in her eyes.

 _So wrong,_  thought Sam,  _so wrong. You can't look him in the eye. You can't show him you're afraid. You're just making it worse._

"Come on, sweetie bird, come on, touch yourself for me," Victor called. "Use that little hand of yours and get me off." He grinned and jerked his cock up. "Unless you like what you see?"

She was breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling, nipples tight from the cold water, turning as much as she should to try to hide her body from his eyes.

Victor glanced at Crusher. "Hey man, she's not listening to me. Mind if I teach the little bitch to listen?"

"Sure," Crusher said. "Too old for me."

Victor sauntered deeper into the shower, grabbed the witch's lead line—she was new and had put up a fight the first few days, so they still put her on the lead, so she could "learn obedience"—and jerked her toward him. She screamed as the line pulled her across the slick floor.

Crusher glared at the rest of the monsters. "Get your fucking asses clean!" he called. "Unless you want me to start cleaning them for you."

Sam closed his eyes until the water shut off after the automatic seven minutes. After the rest of them filed out to get their fresh clothes, the witch stayed behind. Crusher had to clean her up.

~*~

Going almost a hundred down an abandoned Montana highway, Dean found his eyes blurring, crushing the mile markers and the sharp bright stars into intermittent flashes of light that sketched out his world.

Or maybe it was the blood loss.

But probably not. The whatever-the-fuck-warthog monster had barely touched him, and he had tied it off right away. More likely was the concentration required to keep the Impala steady on the road with one hand, keep pressure on Dad's gut wound with the other, and, above all, to  _not panic_. Panicking would do neither of them any fucking good at this point - he just had to get to the nearest hospital before his hand went numb or Dad's guts started oozing through his fingers.

And just as the clock in the dash of the Impala clicked over to 12:02 a.m., Dean realized that it was January 25, and he was sixteen.

The laughter that bubbled up through his lips tasted a bit like blood and shook him until the road was practically vibrating in his vision. It was semi-hysterical enough to bring Dad back up out of his half-shocky, half-drugged slump against his son's hand.

"D-Dean?" he mumbled, groping for something only he could see.

"Shhhh, Dad," Dean said. "Rest."

"Dean, did we—"

"Yeah, we got it, Dad."

John frowned. "You were...crying or—"

Dean glanced over at him, wondering if he could hold his own wound closed, or at least help Dean wrap it better. But would he really want to put his right hand, covered in John's blood, back on the wheel? It wasn't like Winchester blood hadn't soaked into the Impala before, but this was the first time that Dean could watch it going and do nothing to stop it—nothing to make it better—but drive.

"I just realized," he said, when he saw Dad's eyes sliding out of focus again, "that I'm sixteen today." He briefly took his one hand off the wheel. "Look Dad! I can drive!"

John tried to smile, but it didn't look very good.

What would Dean do if his father died right there? His mind reached for the idea and then stopped, pulled itself back. Dean couldn't,  _refused to_ , imagine a world without Dad; a world without Mom had fallen apart and fractured, and Dad had put something back together that worked, that held them up, that held them together. Without Dad, Dean couldn't imagine building his own world. There wouldn't be enough pieces of him to sew together. Fuck, he didn't even know that he would be able to stop the Impala when he found a destination. With the signs moving past too fast, with his foot weighing a hundred pounds on the gas, he could have passed the turn a hundred miles back.

Dean started talking, trying to catch the edge of his father's attention, trying to hold him to the moment when he seemed to be going somewhere Dean couldn't follow. It didn't really work, John slid away from him, but Dean kept talking anyway, talking about everything from how he hated school, to what he'd seen on TV, to the latest sound he'd noticed in the Impala's engine until somehow he worked his way around to Sam. Sam talking to him, Sam smiling at him, Dean reading books just so that he could give them to Sam and actually know what he was talking about the next time he ended up at Freak Camp.

He talked until his throat went dry, then kept talking. He stopped forming sentences and moved into impressions, moments, dark corners, pretty girls, but everything always spun back around to Sam.

"Sure, he's a monster, I know that," he said to the darkness and his father. "But I don't get what he could have done. I mean, he's younger than me and I've never seen him hurt fucking anything, won't even bite M&M's really hard, you know? But he's there and he must deserve it, but I have no fucking idea why. I mean, what could make a kid like Sam a monster? He's just... _Sam_."

Dean had no idea how much his father was hearing, and after a while he didn't want to know. The words weren't important, and maybe he shouldn't have been saying any of them anyway, but he had to talk, because right then, each hand holding onto the lives of the two things he loved in the world, he needed to hear a voice to convince himself that the Impala and John and Sam weren't just an illusion, something that he had made up in the dark, like a sailor might make up a story about a star, hoping that it will bring him home.

The Impala purred and John Winchester bled through his fingers, and Dean kept driving, kept talking about Sam, who was so far away.

~*~

Late spring in Freak Camp was almost tolerable, especially compared to the summer heat, but it was still hot enough to burn the skin off a vampire and leave everyone else tired and sunburned.

Dean, whether because he didn’t like the heat or because he  _cared_ —Sam wrestled sometimes with which it could be, Becca’s voice and his own suspicions warring with each other—always made sure that they had a piece of shade at the very least. Sometimes, being John Winchester’s son, he could even talk his—and Sam’s—way into one of the air-conditioned buildings.

This visit, Dean had convinced the people at Administration to let them through, and he and Sam sat in an out-of–the-way corner back against the cool plaster of the wall and shared the biggest meal that Sam had eaten in his entire life.

“Dad’ll be busy for hours,” Dean said. “No need to rush, Sam. We have lots of time today.”

He hadn’t believed it, actually, when Dean just kept pulling food out of his bag. Two sub sandwiches, three apples, a huge bag of chips and two small, squashed cupcakes in plastic wrapping. Sam was almost shaking from the effort not to reach out and snatch some of that food, shove it into his mouth before someone—monster or guard—took it away.

Only the fact that he was with  _Dean_ —and Dean looked happy and relaxed, like he hadn’t always the last few visits—kept Sam from acting like a filthy, grabby monster. Sam knew that Dean would give him some of that bounty, at least an apple or a cupcake would end up in his stomach, because Dean had never been cruel enough to show him food and not allow him to eat it.

Dean beamed at him after the last cupcake was out of the bag. “Dig in, Sam,” he said. “I’m just glad they give me less shit about bringing in food these days."

Cautiously, still not quite believing the feast before him, Sam reached for an apple.

By the time Dean had finished his sandwich and opened up the bag of chips, Sam was eating steadily and not afraid anymore that this was going to be taken away. He still tried to eat slowly—too much food at once,  _good_ food, could sometimes come back up if he scarfed it, and Sam didn’t want to lose  _any_ of the wonderful food that Dean had brought him—but he was smiling and able to laugh again at the stories Dean told around his mouthful of chips.

He had been afraid, sometimes, when Dean visited, not because he was afraid Dean would hurt him—nothing Dean did could possibly hurt—but because Dean was sometimes tense and unhappy. Sam assumed it had something to do with his father, or maybe the real world, but he always had a nagging fear that it was his fault and that someday Dean would stop coming because of something Sam had done without ever meaning to. Days when Dean didn’t touch him, when his smiles were tighter and less happy, those days Sam would watch him go and not be able to sleep for nights afterward, no matter how exhausted he was, because he was afraid that Dean would never come back.

But not today. Today, Dean smiled and pushed chips in his face and grinned when he made jokes so that Sam could be sure that he was supposed to laugh.

“You happy, Sam?” Dean asked. “You like your sub? I wasn’t sure what kind to get, so I went with everything.”

Sam nodded. “Love it. And the chips are fanstastic. But…” Sam stuttered to a halt, not sure how to ask. “Why so much…? I mean, I love it, I’m grateful that you brought it for me, but…” God, Dean’s food was so good. He felt  _full_ and healthy for the first time in months, he was sure he wouldn't have to eat for a week if he had to, but he couldn’t even pretend to understand why Dean was sharing such good things with him  _now_. “Just so much.”

Dean colored a little. Sam blinked and couldn’t ignore the funny feeling in his chest. Dean was  _blushing_ for  _him_.

“Well,” Dean said. “It’s May. You know.”

Sam stared. He had no idea what Dean was talking about, unless…

“My…birthday?” he guessed.

“Yeah.” Dean cleared his throat and looked away. “I mean, I know it doesn’t make much difference in FREACS. It’s not really a big deal, like it is outside, but I like to do something special, you know? Just between us, so I know I’m doing something, you know?”

Sam stared for a second until the idea could sink into his skin, into his head. Dean cared so much he would remember something as pointless as the day Sam had been born and make it  _special_.

Suddenly, Sam thought about last year. Usually, he tried to forget the day-to-day of Freak Camp. Why would he want to remember pain—his own and others’? Why should he keep track of bad food, miserable hungry nights, and punishments doled out to monsters he hadn’t known well and who disappeared before he could ever know their real names?

But he remembered every one of Dean’s visits. He stored them up like some monsters hid food, because it got him through the bad times. Because, like the stories he read in books, every one of Dean’s visits was a moment when he could, at least for a little while, escape everything that could hurt him.

So, if he thought back, he could clearly remember this time last year when the weather had been warmer and Dean had brought him two books, neither of them about monsters—one had been about stars and the other had been about car maintenance. And he had brought a small cake. It had been an even more special day in all the best days when Dean had come to visit.

For a second it was hard to breathe, but not because he was in pain or because he felt faint from hunger. It was because of  _Dean_ , who looked so embarrassed but happy. Because Dean was good to him  _all the time_ and didn’t expect anything from Sam. He just did it because he cared. Sam knew this was true because Dean never told him when he was doing kind things, things Sam would never be able to repay. He just did them and didn’t ask for anything in return.

Sam clenched his hand in his shirt to keep from reaching for Dean. He had salt from the chips on his fingers, and a little dressing from the roast beef sandwich, and he didn’t want to repay all of Dean’s wonderfulness by dirtying his nice, if oversized, leather jacket.

“It’s wonderful, Dean,” he choked out. “I can’t…no one’s ever…” Sam smiled, trying to put everything he was feeling into the expression, because he didn’t have the words. “You’re the best,” he said authoritatively, sure of this one fact. Dean was the best person in his life, maybe the best person in the world. People couldn’t get better than Dean.

While they finished the food, they talked about random things. Dean told wild stories about traveling with Dad, and Sam occasionally threw in a comment about science or history or hunting that he had read. Once or twice, a guard or someone who worked in Administration would stop and stare at them, but Dean always glared, and they went away. Sam didn’t know if Dean had this power because he was a hunter, or a Winchester, or just because he was Dean, but Sam reveled in it. With Dean he felt safe, protected, fed and comfortable, and it was like some of that protection stayed, hovering over Sam, even when Dean was gone.

Hours later, feeling unnaturally, pleasantly full, when the last chip was eaten and nothing more than a pleasant memory on his tongue, Sam  _felt_ someone staring at him, and looked up from their poker game expecting a guard, and saw John Winchester staring at them.

Sam forgot all his lessons in survival and stared, terrified. Maybe this was how the fresh meat felt about the regular guards. Unable to look away, because the sight was so horrible that they couldn’t quite pull their eyes down. He shook just from that look, and he could feel the cards slipping from his suddenly lax hands. He forced his eyes down, finally, and called himself a hundred kinds of idiot. You didn’t look at guards or hunters. You didn’t, above all, call attention to yourself by being afraid. He wasn’t so new that he should forget that. Especially now, when it could get him so much more than a beating. He tried, desperately, to think of a way to warn Dean who was behind him. Because Dean was there, right there, playing cards with him, and it was  _Dean’s father_ standing behind him, which meant it was the only person in the whole camp, maybe in the whole world, who could hurt Dean.

If Dean was hurt, punished, because Sam had been a stupid monster, because he had contaminated him just by sitting next to him, dealing him the cards, and reaching into the same bag of chips, Sam didn’t know what how he would even be able to look at Dean or dirty him with his presence again.

Maybe that was why Dean had been tense and unhappy other times he had come to visit. Maybe his father had been hurting him. Sam hadn’t seen any welts, scars, burns, cuts, bruises or even the stiffness that he got sometimes after a beating or other punishment, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

Maybe if Dean hit him now, treating him obviously like a monster deserved, he would be safe and John Winchester wouldn’t take his justified disgust out on his son.

Dean had noticed Sam’s tension, even if it had only taken a few seconds for Sam to work through the terror and the decision.

“Sam, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, reaching for him with the hand that didn’t hold his cards.

Sam pulled away, afraid of Dean’s father seeing the way Dean touched him—gently, kindly, without pain. Only after he had moved did it occur to him that he should have flinched. Maybe if he acted like he would around a guard or another hunter, John wouldn’t know how good Dean was to him and wouldn’t hurt him or take him away forever.

“Your father,” Sam whispered, keeping his eyes locked on his hands and the fallen cards. The Jack of Clubs was looking up at him with one eye. “You can hit me if you—“

Dean swung around, expression a combination of shock, embarrassment, and outrage. “Dad! What are you doing here!”

John Winchester’s eyes shifted between his son and Sam, the scowl never altering over his face. “ASC’s full of assholes.”

“Yeeeeah,” Dan agreed, like it was a basic fact that didn’t seem to have much to do with the current conversation. “But I thought you were in Special Research all day.”

“The interrogation protocols are biased in favor of the fucking Campbells, and they’re trying to tell me I have to come back another fucking time to finish my…research. I’m here to find someone so I can shove those protocols up their ass and see if they get as pissed as I am. What are you doing?”

Dean shrugged and gestured casually at Sam. “Just talking,” he said. Then he straightened defensively. “It’s research of my own! Can’t I research while you’re in Special Research? It’s the same thing, isn’t it, you talking to monsters, me talking to S—other monsters?”

Sam didn’t look up, but he could feel John Winchester’s eyes boring into his forehead. He hoped that maybe if he kept his eyes locked away from both of them, John would forget he had been there, contaminating his son.

John jerked his head. “Come on, pack your stuff.”

Dean jumped up and scrambled to shove the deck of cards and the few wrappers into his bag. His hands brushed Sam’s while sweeping up all the cards, and Sam jumped. “We’re leaving?” Dean asked. “New hunt?”

“No, we’re not leaving, but you’re not staying here.”

Dean stopped and looked up to glare. “Dad, if we’re not leaving…”

“You should learn how this shit Campbell administration works,” John said. And then, when Dean didn’t move, John took a step closer. “Dean, you’re coming with me  _now_.”

Dean straightened like he’d been slapped, but his expression was still sullen, angry.

“Yes, sir,” he said. He continued shoving things into his bag, but more slowly. Sam was glad that anger had never been directed at him, and marveled at Dean’s bravery, that he could just be angry toward a hunter like his father. Maybe it was something that came with being a real person, or maybe it was just another example of the amazingness that was Dean.

“ _Now_ , Dean,” John said.

“I’m  _coming_ , jeesh, Dad.” Dean zipped the duffle closed and swung it over his shoulder. “See you later, Sam.”

“No, you won’t,” John said, and Sam felt his lungs sieze up for the second time that day.

But Dean didn’t even flinch. He just glared. “Well, maybe not today.” He glanced at Sam, but the next words were still directed more at John. “But I’ll be back sometime.”

If anything, John’s scowl deepened, his brows pulling in over his nose, but he didn’t do anything else–didn’t even raise his hand threateningly— just jerked his head. “Come on,” he said.

“Sam needs to—“ Dean began, but his father cut him off.

“The freak can find his own way back to the yard.  _Go_ , Dean.”

Dean was sullen, angry and pissed off, but to Sam’s surprise he was still not afraid. “Yes, sir,” he muttered, and walked past his father deeper into Administration.

Sam expected John to follow, but he just stood there, looking at Sam, long enough to make him very very nervous.

Just about when Sam had resigned himself to being whipped—at least beaten or kicked a couple times—John Winchester turned and strode off after Dean without another word.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief and then beat his retreat out of Administration and back into the spring heat.

~*~

On any given November 2nd—if they weren't on a hunt or in the hospital—the Winchesters found themselves in a bar.

This year it was the Roadhouse, and John was halfway to drunk on the hardest whiskey he could buy.

John was an old-school hunter, an ex-Marine who had entered the great fight against inhuman threats when his wife died in the silent war, an unnumbered casualty. John was a hard man to get to know—he had few friends, and those he had he tended to piss off from time to time—but everyone knew that with a weapon in his hand was one of the most frightening things the monsters would ever see.

Jerry Bentham sat next to the hero and bought him the occasional drink. It was an honor. And, drunk enough, John might let slip some secrets, some insights that - beside his overwhelming obsession - had made him the best.

"Where's your boy?" he asked at last, gesturing to Ellen for another pair of whiskeys. "He's, what, fourteen, fifteen now?"

John gave a short bark of laughter. "Almost seventeen, and growing like a goddamned beanstalk. He was here, you saw him. Left with a girl."

Bentham blinked. He'd noticed the kid that had a couple drinks with Winchester and then left with the hot babe on his arm. He hadn't looked legal-drinking age—Ellen didn't care as much when it was mostly hunters in a crowd—but he sure as hell hadn't looked sixteen. Sixteen was the age of high school drama and pimples, not that cold-eyed assessment of the room and the brazen confidence in his smile when he looked at the girl.

"Damn, Winchester, you've got a good kid there. Lucky all the way around. I've even heard you've reserved yourself a damn fine piece of monster ass. Good stuff."

John's eyes were no longer muzzy and drugged. They looked startled and dangerous. "Monster ass? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Bentham tensed. He didn't know quite what Winchester was reacting to—he'd heard the guy could get damn right sanctimonious if rubbed the wrong way—so he went forward slowly. "There's a kid at the freak facility. They call him..."  _Pretty Freak_ , yeah, not going there, "88UI...something like that. I've heard that you've...you know, shown an interest."

Winchester snorted. "Oh,  _Sam_."

Bentham was honestly surprised. Most hunters, if they called the freaks anything, used the standard nicknames. "You know his name?" 

"Dean talks about him." Winchester scowled. "Don't know what kind of fascination the kid sees in some freak, no matter how human it looks. If I had my way, I'd put a bullet, stake, or a fucking ax through every one and leave 'em for the crows."

"So," Bentham spoke slowly. "You don't care about the kid? You don't have...a plan for him?"

"What the hell would I do with a monster? All these fucks who want to study them, want to get close to them, make my skin crawl. Right up there with druggies and guys who get off on little boys." Winchester threw back the newest shot and winced slightly as is went down, his movements getting sluggish. "I see a freak, I kill it. End of story."

Bentham was very glad he hadn't talked about the kid more explicitly. If Winchester hadn't gutted him for implying he was fucking a monster...well, the guy clearly didn't share any of private interests Bentham held in common with many of the camp guards. He worked to make sure that his face didn't show the spike in heartrate, the nervous sweat on his palms.

But at the same time this opened up opportunities for guys like his friend Victor. And maybe Bentham, if he played his cards right.

"So, you don't have any interest in that damned monster," Bentham repeated, just to be clear. "It's just your kid, Dean?"

Winchester nodded. "And, God willing, my boy'll grow out of his fucking stupid obsession before he does something stupid and gets himself killed."

Bentham ordered another beer, and somberly clinked glasses with the hero. "Here's hoping."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this is the first NC-17-rated chapter for the following content: explicit descriptions of sexual assault and coercion of children; child prostitution; torture, abuse, and violence against children; degrading language of a sexual nature.
> 
> All the intro chapters are over. This is Freak Camp, the real deal. The gloves are off. This is what happens to Sam, what's going to be taken into account in everything that is to come. There's no glossing it or skimping over the details. That would be a disservice to him and you.
> 
> If you're able to keep reading, don't lose heart. While this is only the beginning of the gritty horror, we do promise that we will one day pay off every ounce of horror with sweetness and comfort. Stick with us. There will be an end.

Sam had only been in the library half an hour that morning, reading accounts of international crop circle activity and their relative connection to recorded demon activity outside the North American continent, when Victor appeared in the doorway. 

"This is a special day for you, Pretty Freak." He twirled an ugly, heavy lead line - the kind they used to drag big, defiant monsters around - in his hand. "A very special day."

Sam went very still before he tucked his paper into the book and closed it, so carefully it made no noise. He pushed the book to the center of the table with both hands, then stood up, and kept his eyes on the floor as he walked over to the guard.

"Hands out."

Sam extended his wrists, keeping them limp as Victor slid the plastic handcuff loops over them and zipped them tight and snug.

But when Victor clipped the stiff lead line onto his collar, Sam's well-honed composure broke. The floor tilted underneath him, his vision swam until he closed his eyes, and an audible keen - that he knew,  _knew_ was a mistake, he could have told any other monster that - rose through his throat. When Victor gave the line its first jerk, he almost collapsed.

"Aw, what's wrong, Pretty Freak?" He tugged again, and Sam nearly stumbled against him, just catching himself in time. "Not used to being on a leash? You've been pretty privileged until now, haven't you? Our little spoiled monster. Those days are over, Pretty Freak. No more special treatment. Today you're going to find out what it's like to be a monster in Freak Camp, just like a big boy."

Sam could barely walk out of the room. The lead provided no slack, just a few links between the snap hook and stiff metal rod, enough for it to rotate in the guard's grip. He couldn't remember the last time he was put on a leash - it might have been when he first arrived, but that was so long ago, he barely remembered anything of those days - even Becca's face was dim. Now, with Victor ruthlessly yanking him along, shoving him ahead an extra step or hauling him back, all Sam's coordination was off. He stumbled repeatedly into doorways and walls, despite all the times he'd watched monsters on leashes and thought how they should just cooperate to make things easier. There wasn't any way to make it easier. He'd never been so conscious of his collar - not since he'd been fitted for a new one a few years ago - but now it seemed to shrink around his neck. He would be strangled before they ever got outside.

He might have been able to recover to some extent, learn to keep his balance better and anticipate Victor's tugs, but his brain had shut down the moment the leash snapped on, screaming nothing but two words: _Special Research Special Research Special Research_. Why else would they use a leash on him? Where else could he be going? But oh God,  _why now?_

He had last seen Dean two weeks ago. Dean, who had given him a sandwich and then found him a bottle of good, cold water from inside Reception. Who had smiled at him so openly, gently, looking fully relaxed again, and hadn't hesitated to brush Sam's hair out of his eyes and rest his hand on his shoulder. Dean hadn't known that would be the last time. Would he be upset when he next came and they told him 88UI6703 had expired? How long would it be before Dean forgot about him, about that pathetic little freak he used to visit?

Sam's shoulder cracked hard into the next doorway, and he couldn't hold back a wretched moan that wasn't about the pain.

"Come  _on_ , freak, I ain't got all day," Victor snapped, hauling him forward, and Sam lost his footing entirely, slamming to the floor. Though the leash jerked in Victor's grip, the majority of his weight still caught on his collar before he caught himself on the floor with his forearms, and he choked, struggling to breathe, before Victor hauled him up again.

At last they reached the staircase at the end of the corridor, and Sam's stomach dropped even further, though he hadn't thought it was possible at this point - not with knowing that  _Special Research_  would be after that torturous expanse of stairs. But Victor, making him go first, held him mostly steadily, or at least firmly enough that even when he would have lost his balance, he couldn't fall forward.

When they reached the bottom, instead of turning for the door to outside, across the yard to Special Research, Victor dragged him deeper into Administration. Sam was confused at first about the route, but his feet kept stumbling along - at least they had caught on well enough.

Then Victor stopped, jerking him to a halt, and swung open one of the steel doors—solid but for a small, fogged window—before pushing him inside, where Crusher and a hunter were waiting.

It was Sam's first time in an interrogation room.

"Took you long enough," Crusher said. Sam's eyes had dropped to the floor, fixing on the hunter's steel-tipped boots the moment he crossed the threshold, but he didn't need to look up to know how Crusher was staring at him.

"Yeah, the freak isn't too used to being on a leash." Victor unclipped him, and Sam didn't move.

Crusher barked a laugh. "Well, he's going to have plenty of chances now to get used to it."

The hunter moved closer, walking around him. "This is the Pretty Freak?"

"Yep," Victor said. "He's been here a long time, he's very well trained. Ain't ya, Pretty Freak? Have a seat."

Sam moved stiffly, but without pause, taking a seat in the rusty metal folding chair. His mind wasn't quite blank enough not to notice the brown stains on the seat nor know they weren't rust.

Victor lifted his leg to half-sit on the corner of the table, leaning over him. "Hands up on the table." 

They felt like someone else's hands, not his at all, but he had no choice but to obey. He told them to move, and the numb, foreign hands came to rest on the table.

"No." Crusher thumped his club down in the middle of the table, next to a set of metal cuffs bolted there. "Here."

Sam swallowed, then stretched his arms further down, placing his wrists in the cuffs. Crusher snapped the bolts into place, then leaned over, setting his club under Sam's chin to tilt his face up. "My, my," he whispered. "I thought I'd never see this day. You are all  _mine_ now, boy. And we are going to have some fun."

Victor rolled out a set of knives - all different types, including silver, iron, bronze, and something that looked like black glass - tucked neatly into a cloth, onto the table. He plucked one out, twirling it once before setting it to Sam's cheek, just under his eye, and trailed it down across his lips, to under his chin.

"So, Pretty Freak. Exactly what kind of monster are you?"

Sam's heartrate jumped just seeing the blade that close to his eye, but he fought to have no reaction, fought to give Victor nothing that he could latch onto, no reaction that would guide the knife. He fought to think of everything—his eyes, his nose, his lips—as unimportant, so that maybe maybe maybe Victor would pass them over, would...just stop.

Sam thought hard enough that the room went gray, that his heart seemed distant and unimportant, that even the guard's words and questions became distant and unimportant.  _This is a good place_ , he thought.  _I might save something for Dean if I can just. Stay. Here._

It was a good place, the safest place he could be. And when the screaming started, he barely even recognized it as his own. 

~*~  
 __  
One year later  
  
Winter was a bad time for fresh meat to learn the rules of Freak Camp.

The summer heat was excruciating, and even the hardier monsters collapsed if forced to stand outside for hours in the middle of the day. But the winters, in Sam's view, were far worse.

In November, most monsters got an extra pair of clothes—heavy canvas pants and ragged jackets—to wear over their usual grays. They were also supposed to get a second blanket when temperatures dropped below freezing, and a third when it went below zero... but that didn't always happen, especially if a monster wasn't as cooperative as the guards liked. They all knew, if a guard was interested enough in you, how you could pay for one in Head Alley.

Up until last winter, Sam had always gotten his extra blankets without any issues. He was quiet, he made no trouble, never snarled or tried to get away when the guards grabbed him. Plus, with the Winchesters visiting the camp as regularly as they did and Dean always making a point of seeking him out, Sam understood he had a thin shield about him, an invisible _keep off_ sign.

Something had changed, though, about a year ago, around the same time he had been taken in for his first interrogation. He didn't know what, but the guards had decided it was open season on Sam. 

He'd always been known as  _Pretty Freak_ , and he'd never liked the way Crusher and a few other guards looked at him in the showers, but the illusion of protection had crumbled the night Victor and Crusher cornered him while he was cleaning the showers. Victor grabbed his hands behind his back and kicked the backs of his knees to force him down, while Crusher grabbed his jaw and promised to pull his teeth out, one by one, if he bit. Sam had seen him extract monsters' teeth. He didn't bite, not him or when Victor took his turn, not when they made him gag on semen. He'd thrown up afterwards, emptying his stomach, but the guards had just said he would learn to swallow and keep it down, because from then on he had to use his sweet mouth to pay for every extra blanket. 

That wasn't the end of it. From then on some of the guards made a habit of pulling him into corners to grope and squeeze. The first few times he couldn't stop whimpering and twisting frantically to get away - which made a lot of them more excited - but after he blacked out for several seconds when Crusher knocked his head hard against the wall, he'd learned to go still and limp and take his mind out of what his body felt. Then Victor said he needed to learn other skills, and wrapped his hand over Sam's around his prick, showing him how to jack hard and fast while he gripped tight a hunk of Sam's hair on the back of his head, keeping his face close for when he spurted.

Sometimes they let him have a half-eaten sandwich afterward, if they said he'd done a good enough job.

After the first half-dozen lessons, Sam adjusted, accepted it as another inevitable fact of Freak Camp, and learned to use it as a bargaining tool, to get extra meals when it seemed worth it, and to keep his blankets a few extra weeks after all the other monsters' blankets were picked up in the first week of March. He'd been lucky until now, but there was no reason why he wouldn't be treated the same as any other monster with a face or a hole the guards liked, even though Dean Winchester favored him with the occasional visits. Dean couldn't negate all the other truths of life in Freak Camp, what Sam was, and what he deserved.

Once he'd gotten over the initial shock of the guards' new expectations of him, Sam felt a new level of fear, because he knew this wasn't everything they could do to him. He knew enough of what the bloodstains on pants meant and why monsters would shake after a private session. He'd caught glimpses of the way they'd pin a monster against the shower wall or in Head Alley, even though he was always focused on getting away as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, in case they turned on him next. There was something worse, much worse, and none of them - especially Crusher - were shy about telling him exactly what they wanted to do with his virgin ass.

But they didn't. They'd grope and feel, sometimes grind against him in a tight corner until he couldn't stop the whimpers, but they never actually pulled his pants down. Sam didn't know why, but waiting for the day they would bred an awful, unspeakable fear in him worse than even what he felt for Special Research.

Apart from that, the hardest part wasn't getting used to their dicks and taste of come, or learning to hold still as they smeared it over his face and not wipe it off until they told him he could. It was making the effort, for the first time, not to think of Dean. Sam didn't know what he would think if he knew what Sam was doing, but he couldn't imagine Dean would be pleased. The thought of Dean's face if he found out made Sam sicker, closer to vomiting, than he felt now after a round in Head Alley. It hadn't taken him long to realize what he was doing was just another part of being a monster, no more than how he was supposed to be treated, but he was certain Dean wouldn't want to look at or touch a monster with such a dirty mouth, who touched the guards and let them touch him the way he did. Dean might - and this was the worst thought, the one that made him physically shudder and blank out his mind faster than when he entered an interrogation room - he might even decide Sam wasn't worth getting out.

But it was hard not to think of Dean, especially when the guards taunted him when he was in the middle of blowing them or jerking them off.  _You'd better thank us for teaching you some valuable skills. Maybe this way you'll keep that Winchester kid happy for a while, huh?_  That knifed him worse than anything he'd felt yet in an interrogation, not even when they started bringing out hot irons. That first time—and many times after—he hadn't been able to keep back a choked sob. Which, he could have told anyone, was the worst thing he could have done, because now they knew exactly where to dig and twist. And of course they did, every time. Sam deserved as much for letting them know.

He became something of the guards' favorite monster whore - they were quick to compliment how compliant he'd become, how soon he'd learned to  _love the taste of our dicks, don't ya, can't get enough of it_. Sometimes when they went after him, it was like the first time, when he didn't have a chance to make a deal to get anything out of it. As bad as that was, the alternative - when he had time to plan and weigh his options before making an offer - always made him feel worse in the end. That was when he knew what they said about him was true, and there was no point pretending otherwise.

All in all, when the black van with a new shipment of monsters pulled through the gate, Sam was blindingly, selfishly grateful. Fresh meat, unmarked yet by the abuse and hardships of Freak Camp, always pulled the guards' attention away from the regulars, at least for a while.

There were downsides of new monster arrivals, though. It got tiring to watch them make the same mistakes, learn the same lessons, that every new batch of monsters went through. Sam thought sometimes he could give an instructive half-hour - no, even ten-minute - orientation that would have saved them all a significant amount of blood, tears, and sore throats. But the guards would never have allowed it, because they clearly enjoyed the breaking-in process. New monsters screamed in ways no one else did, no matter what was happening, because they still carried those notes of outrage and shock.

After Becca left for Special Research, Sam had learned not to get close to any other monster, not when they were just heading the same way tomorrow or the next day, and in the meantime would likely slit his throat to get the last half of his bread. Sam didn't trust any of them, no matter how nice they tried to play. If he ignored them long enough, one day he'd look around and they wouldn't be anywhere. Sometimes they lasted a few years, even, but no one was there who had been around the same time as Becca. In a sense, the guards - many of whom also came and went, but the essential core remained the same - and Sam were the constants of Freak Camp, while all the other monsters flashed through like the browning autumn leaves on the tops of trees Sam could see outside the fences: fleeting, faceless, and forgotten.

Sam had had years of practice detaching himself from the new monsters' screams and sobs, only feeling irritation because they didn't even know how bad it was going to get, that this was nothing in comparison to what they'd be undergoing soon enough in interrogations and, eventually, Special Research. They were just so  _stupid_ and weak, and he often wished the guards would hit them harder to get the point through, or that they'd just hurry up and die already.

But he hadn't had much experience getting used to the sounds of a small girl sobbing.

She had been one of the first dragged out of the van, tiny wrists bound with thick rope threaded with silver. Her brown eyes had been enormous in her pale face, streaked with tear tracks and dirt, and her brown hair still looked shiny and soft, like it had been well cared for and only recently mussed. She was smaller, younger, than Sam could remember any other monster being, and he heard someone nearby - he didn't know or care who - swear softly. 

"What is she, seven?" 

Sam didn't know. He didn't have much experience guessing ages - there wasn't any point to it. Dean had told him when his birthday was, occasionally reminded him how old he was now, and Sam listened and remembered because it was important to Dean for some reason. So he knew that he was thirteen now ( _and Dean was less than two months from turning eighteen_ ), and according to his entry date in his ID number, he'd been in Freak Camp since he was five. If the other monster was right and this new monster-girl was seven, that wasn't so bad. If he'd made it, she had a chance...for what? To last longer for Crusher to have his fun? Sam's mouth twisted, and he turned away, tried to forget he had ever seen her. Maybe he wouldn't see her again.

It was just his luck, of course, that she ended up in the same barracks as him, just a few cots down, in one that had been vacated just a week or so ago. And since she turned out to be a shapeshifter, she had the shiny new green bracelet shot through her forearm.

Maybe she was still crying from the shock of that pain, but Sam thought the cold was more likely. Karl had announced there was a blanket shortage and decided since the new monster-girl (the guards hadn't decided on a nickname yet) was so small, she could double hers up as two. Like two really helped when the water in the buckets outside the bathroom stalls - available if monsters felt finicky enough to wash their hands - had frozen solid.

Sam had learned long ago how to wrap the blankets around himself as tight as possible with no possible holes, with his nose and mouth inside to keep the warm breath trapped, and rub his hands, arms, and legs together as long as he could to generate warmth. This would be one of the lessons of his orientation (along with the quickest ways to get each of the guards off), if they'd let him have one. He didn't think the girl would be able to listen and understand, though. Not tonight.

So he burrowed himself deeper, tried to wipe out everything he was hearing - but it wasn't just the girl's fairly steady, predictable tears. Other monsters were muttering and hissing, sounding angry, like they had a right to peace and quiet and a good night's sleep.  _Ha_. 

Then there was a wet shredding sound, followed by the smack of something hitting the unfinished floor. Louder groans filled the barracks, and it didn't take long before Sam could smell the discarded skin, tissue, and fluids even through his blankets. He closed his eyes and breathed out. If everyone would just shut up, he'd be able to block everything out and get to sleep, but clearly that wasn't going to happen, especially as a second wet plop sounded and the pitch of the girl's sobs changed again. Now the snarls from older inmates sounded truly threatening, with lines about _I'll get up and take care of this myself_ , while the newer ones complained in loud, querulous protests which illustrated how little they understood:  _fucking ridiculous, why doesn't someone stop her or do something?_  Sam gritted his teeth, rolling over. He knew exactly how this would go: someone would get up to "take care" of this, someone else would rise to argue about how that should be done - a shake or a punch or something worse - and within seconds, the lights would be glaring and the guards filling the room with their clubs to smack around all the monsters, both standing and prone, and no one would get any sleep that night. Or maybe the guards would come in anyway, to see who was crying, what shifter was violating the rules about keeping a single form, and give her something real to cry about.

There were only a few ways to avoid that, and fewer still were in his power. Trying to talk or yell at other monsters only made himself an automatic target - why would they trust  _him_ , even when he had the earliest ID number of anyone in the camp - and he'd probably end up attracting the guards' attention first when they showed up. The monster girl was not likely to stop crying soon, even with all the threats coming her way - unless she were given a reason.

Sam swore again inside his head, then rolled off the cot, holding the blankets around him. He walked down the aisle in between rows of cots, ignoring the taunts and advice thrown his way:  _what's the whore going to do, you can't blow her to make her shut up_. He stopped before the girl's cot, ignoring the piles of stinking shifter skin at his feet. A slightly bigger frame now huddled beneath the thin blanket, and he could barely make out the glint of watery blue eyes peeking out at him.

Pulling the blankets from his shoulders, he dropped them on top of her and said, "Stop crying."

The barracks was absolutely silent.

She had stopped mid-breath, staring at him in astonishment. Sam returned the gaze, waiting to see if she would start again. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she did, but he didn't think hitting her would make her stop. But she didn't make another sound, and neither did any of the other monsters who had been snarling and grumbling seconds before.

Now the only problem left was the cold already sinking through his fingertips or through his socks to his toes.

Sam turned away from the girl and his own cot, and all the monsters' eyes on him, to walk outside.

He knew someone was watching the camera set in the upper corner of the barracks. If a guard wasn't already on his way because of the girl, they'd be there fast enough since he'd tripped the motion sensor that activated at curfew. No one cared, though, as long as the monsters stayed in Head Alley.

Victor was the one who approached the barracks through the cold, bundled in his padded jacket. Sam watched him, listened to his footsteps, planning his words.

"Well, well," he said, smacking his club into his palm. "What does the Pretty Freak want?"

Sam said, "I need more blankets." He was trying to hold still, not shiver too visibly - at least the wind wasn't cutting between the barracks at the moment.

Victor sighed loudly. "But we gave you  _three_. What happened? Didn't you take care of them?"

Sam didn't budge. "I'll pay."

At that, Victor tilted back his head, laughing. "Aren't you a greedy little cocksucker."

 _Sure_ , Sam thought.  _Whatever_. He didn't expect Victor to turn him down. But the guard wouldn't make it easy for him, either.

Victor sauntered around the corner, to lean against the inside wall. "Get on with it."

The hard, frozen ground made his knees burn, but he ignored it, squeezing his hands into fists before he got enough feeling in his fingers to undo Victor's fly. He'd gotten a few bruises learning not to touch them with cold hands, so he used only his mouth for the rest. Victor grunted once as Sam closed his mouth around most of his prick, but he only had to work alone for a few moments before, sure enough, Victor's hand settled roughly on the back of his head, nails scraping on his scalp. He was muttering too, hisses and curses, but Sam blocked it all out, the sounds and taste and sensation of being choked, even the cold pressing around him and ache in his knees. He wasn't aware of anything until Victor's grip tightened and his prick started to jerk in his mouth, and Sam instinctively swallowed, over and over, until Victor pulled out and tucked himself away. Sam was grateful he'd finished that way - he didn't want to find out what it was like to have his face smeared at this temperature.

He stayed where he was, breathing and waiting, until Victor straightened up. "Wait there, Pretty Freak. I'll see what we've got."

Sam didn't react, even at the implication he would get nothing for his trouble. He knew better than to even think of any threats if Victor never came back with anything . There wasn't anything he could do - except, perhaps, hope that if he stayed just where he was without moving, soon enough he wouldn't feel the cold or anything at all.

Victor did come back, though. He tossed two ratty blankets, more transparent in some places than a mesh screen, at Sam's knees. "There you go, whore. Pleasure doing business with you."

Sam didn't even feel anything at the loss of a blanket or whatever quality he had had in his last set. He wasn't surprised. This was how it went in Freak Camp. Lesson number one of orientation: no matter how bad you thought it was, life always got worse. The longer you stayed alive, the worse it would get.

Dean had made him a promise, more than three years ago now, and Sam wouldn't lose faith in him - because he was Dean, he would eventually come to get him out - but Sam didn't expect to make it that long. Even so, he had to keep trying to stay alive. If he gave up, it was like saying he didn't believe or trust Dean, and he did, more than any other truth he knew. 

And anyway, he had Dean's visits. Dean still came to see him often, reminding Sam he hadn't forgotten about him, though as he got older Sam was more and more at a loss to understand  _why_ Dean cared about him, why he was different to Dean from any other monster. He couldn't spend time questioning it, though - it was, had always been, the only thing which made Sam's life remotely worthwhile. You didn't question what you were afraid of losing, more than anything else that might happen to you. You just had to accept it, and hope:  _tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow he will come again._

Sam got up slowly, staggering more than once at the pain he finally felt in his knees, then turned to trudge back inside, blankets in hand.

~*~

Dean did not come the next day. Instead, after breakfast, he found the shapeshifter girl slowly inching closer to him on the bench. He hadn't noticed her before and didn't react now, until she said, "My name's Kayla."

 _I don't want to know your name,_  Sam nearly said.  _You were lucky last night, so much luckier than you can imagine, but you're going to get hurt soon, and bad. They usually go for the girls before the boys. I don't think you're going to last long, and I don't want to know your name._

But he didn't say any of that, because it wouldn't have helped anything. Sam couldn't remember very well what Becca had told him in the beginning, how she had made him understand. "Sam," he said at last, because there was no harm in telling her his name. It was better than what everyone else - _everyone else but Dean_ \- called him. 

She scooted even closer, almost touching his side now, and right there in the hall where everyone could see. Sam moved away. "Don't," he told her. "You can't let them know what you care about or want."

She stared at him, too shocked and bewildered to even show hurt. There was something very raw and naked about how her eyes looked, and Sam looked away. He didn't like it. It made him feel things, things he hadn't felt since Becca was around, that were only going to get him hurt worse in the end.

He wanted her to understand how Freak Camp worked, and then maybe there wouldn't be any more scenes like last night. Maybe she wouldn't be one of the ones who would be broken in - one less monster he'd have to hear screaming more than he already did. Maybe she would listen to him, unlike all the other new monsters. 

So he leaned forward on his knees, looking down at the table so no one could tell he was talking to her, and began to speak. "I mean it. You can't let any of them know what you want, or they'll take it away and use it against you. Don't trust any of the other monsters, no matter how nice they act - they aren't your friends, they're just using you for whatever they can get, and they don't care what happens to you. You shouldn't trust me either. Monsters don't have friends, especially not in Freak Camp.

"You can't fight any of the guards. Don't try, and don't even think about questioning or arguing. Just do what they say, give them what they want. It'll be worse otherwise." He stopped there, before the wealth of details he could have given her on what to do when they decided they wanted to use her body. Crusher probably would first. He liked those that seemed most helpless, innocent, most likely to squirm, and that often meant kids, as young as he could get them. But Sam couldn't tell her about that, about what they would do to her and the best ways to relax your throat. It wasn't a mercy or kindness, but he wouldn't do it. Hopefully, when the time came, she'd remember his general advice about not fighting, and they wouldn't pull out the silver nails.

Kayla said nothing. Sam chanced a glance at her, sideways from under his hair. 

She had bent her head down, like him, and was picking at her fingernail. "Where'd you get the blankets last night?"

Sam shifted at the question, but made it look like he was just moving as he ate. Never a good idea for the guards to get interested in the conversation of a couple of monsters. "I paid for them."

She kept staring, though not as directly. "With what? Do you have money?"

Sam resisted the urge to put his hands over his face, to block out her eyes and the mess hall and everything. What could he tell her? Should he tell this frightened girl about blowing Crusher when it looked like what he really wanted to do was cut his name into your back with a blowtorch? Should he tell her what Victor liked him to do with his tongue or what to say to Karl to get him hard—and thus blow fast enough not to get bored and start using his club on you.

He risked a glance at her, into her clear, pretty eyes— _not even her eyes, she's a shifter, remember_ —and knew he couldn't. Becca hadn't told him, though looking back he knew now where all those meals and blankets had come from. Some days he missed her so much it hurt.

But he wouldn't lie to Kayla either. Pretending it would get better would just kill her faster.

"No money," he said. "I...do things for the guards."

She hesitated. "Like...run errands or..."

Sam shook his head. That was so wrong, so unlikely--if a guard told him just to "run an errand," Sam would expect a cock down his throat at the very least. "No, no, I do things...with my body...the others call me whore."

The other monsters always filled the word with enough venom that he'd twitch in response, but not just because of the word. It was because of the threat and loathing in their voices. He wasn't sure if they were simply jealous of the skills that earned him his extra blanket and food, or if it really was that bad, what he did. If in the real world it was really that horrifying and shameful to say yes to the guards—when it was that or having his back whipped raw—or to ask for it when he could feel himself starving after mornings without breakfast.

Head Alley was just a dark corner where they pushed Sam down and unzipped their pants. By the time he got there the negotiations were over, the bargaining was done, and he no longer had the option of talking his way out of putting out. He just had to hope they kept up their end of the deal.

Most did. It meant the customers would keep coming back.

After all, it wasn't like all monsters didn't get fucked. The others had to hate him because he said yes, no matter what they told him to do. And that...a real wouldn't do that. The other monsters usually still thought they were reals, or  _better_  than reals.

How different it must be to have the luxury to think you deserved more than pain, and death, and shame. He hated them sometimes, that they could think themselves worthy of being human. Then again, he had seen that belief break them, over and over again, and he was still alive. 

He hoped Kayla wouldn't start calling him "whore". He couldn't afford to get angry about anything that didn't keep him alive.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

 _Not always,_ Sam thought.  _Not now that I know what to do_. "Yes, it hurts," he said. "But it hurts more if you fight. They hurt you more,"  _and enjoy it more_ , "if you fight."

Sam saw the vampire coming out of the corner of his eye, was bracing himself, but Kayla jumped when the taller monster came up behind them and shoved Sam into the table.

It hurt, the unyielding metal grinding against his ribs, but didn't do damage. Celler knew better than to hurt Sam seriously while Crusher and Lonny Fitzpatrick (who didn't like getting sucked, but liked to watch and work himself) were guarding the mess hall. He was a vampire who'd had his jaw permanently wired together because he'd managed to get out of his muzzle twice and started biting other monsters. He'd gotten his longer nickname "Cellulitis" from the raw, red way his skin looked from frying in the sun. (The guard who had named him had been moved to working in Special Research soon after. Victor always scoffed that  _The young punk was too smart to be stuck herding the general freaks_ ).

"Found yourself a pet, whore?" Celler mumbled. Because of the way they'd wired his vampire fangs to his human teeth, and then to his lower jaw, every word he spoke had to fight its way through two layers of clenched teeth. He got his ration of blood intravenously—if he had been "good"—when the werewolves came back from Intensive Containment. The borderline starvation made him even nastier than vamps usually were because of the sun-char. "She pay you back yet for last night by sucking you like you suck anything with a club?"

Sam seriously wished Kayla would stop flinching. Movements like that just drew more attention from the nasties, whether that was monsters like Celler or humans like the guards. Really, there wasn't much difference some days, except the guards had more power.

"No," he said, and kept his focus split between the vamp and Crusher, who watched while leaning against the wall, twirling his club.

"What am I saying? Maybe you don't like your cock sucked. Maybe you just like to put out. Is that it, Pretty Freak?" Celler slid a hand over Sam's shoulders. "If you're so hot to hit your knees, why don't you buy us all feather quilts, whore? I could hold you down, if that would make it easier."

Sam suspected that Celler was just envious. Vamps had nothing to bargain with but their asses—or cunts—and that kind of fucking always hurt the monster. Sam figured he'd hate anyone with a free mouth if he had to bend over for Bernard every time he needed to get fed.

Sam waited until the hand reached his collarbone—no way was he letting a vamp get a grip on his throat; he'd seen shifters with their throats ripped out while a vampire buried their mouth in the wound, hoping some of the lifeblood would seep through the muzzle. Then he slammed his head and body backwards as hard as he could, unbalancing Celler and ripping his hand off his shoulder, knocking him to the floor.

Celler was up almost instantly, hiss-whining through his teeth—what would have been a scream of rage for any other monster—but by that time the guards had noticed. When Celler went for Sam's throat with his hands and his mouth—vamps always forgot that they couldn't actually bite—Crusher was there. The first blow of Crusher's club against the back of Celler's head echoed with a wet crack through the mess hall and slammed the vamp's head into Sam's shoulder. Celler collapsed bonelessly to the floor, where he whimpered through his wired jaw and weakly moved his limbs. The next three unnecessary blows silenced the muffled cries and turned his lower face into so much mush.

"You fucking with my Pretty Freak, sucker?" Crusher panted. "He's too pretty for you. You know what might fuck you? I think I once saw a bulldog ugly enough to fuck your ugly face."

Celler scrabbled against the floor, arms and legs not quite working right from the blows, and Crusher kicked him in the groin. “Fucking get up, Celler,” he said. “You’re in the walkway. Or do you want me to get you up?”

The vampire drag himself beneath a bench, tucking his shaking arms and legs beneath the table. It seemed to be enough.

Sam was expecting it, but Crusher’s punch still slammed his face into the table.

“You wanna fuck a bloodsucker, Pretty Freak?” Crusher asked. “You rolling that slut tongue at him?”

“No, sir,” Sam said to the table.

Crushed clenched his fingers in Sam’s hair and jerked his head up. “What you say, freak?”

“No, sir. I’m not going to let them fuck me, sir.”  _Not going to let anyone, anyone…_

Crushed pulled his face close. “You’re waiting for me, aren’t you, Pretty Freak? I’m gonna be the first cock in your ass.” He shugged. “Maybe second. Don’t care if Winchester goes first. Long as you scream for me. And you  _will_ scream for me, won’t you, Pretty Freak?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said.

“Think Winchester will want to watch while I make you scream, Pretty Freak?”

Sam kept his breathing even. It wasn’t like Crusher hadn’t said it before. “I don’t know, sir.”

“You think I should—“

“Crusher!"

Sam didn’t relax as the guard turned away. If Crusher noticed him letting down his guard, he would take it as a challenge.

“What?” Crusher snapped at Lonny.

Lonny jerked his head around the room, where some monsters were taking advantage of Crusher’s distraction to move and talk. “Focus!” he said.

Crushed snorted and mumbled under his breath about fucking spoilsports, but he let go of Sam’s hair after one more slam down into the table. “Don’t let it happen again, freak,” he said, and walked away.

Sam looked around for Kayla after Crusher was far out of range and couldn’t interpret it as some kind of disrespect. She had slunk away into the confusion so quietly neither he nor Crusher had noticed. Sam found her two tables away, eyes down.

 _Smart girl,_  Sam thought, even though he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to give a damn about anyone in Freak Camp but himself.  _Maybe you’ll learn fast enough to survive._

He didn’t know for sure if that was a good thing.

~*~

That night, after evening roll call, Sam got back into the barracks just in time to see Celler filching his blanket.

For a second, a small, weak, irrational part of him thought, _It’s not fucking fair_ —stupid, useless thought; he was a monster, and life wasn't supposed to be fair to him—but that part was quickly swallowed by rage.  _Hell no, I_ paid  _for that._

“Put it back!” he said, picking up his stride. Celler wasn’t going to give it back, Sam knew that. So he was going to…

The vamp laughed through his wiry smile. “Buy another one, whore.”

Sam hit him with all his weight, putting a little extra speed into the battering ram motion while the bastard was distracted. Sam clawed for his eyes, and the vampire flinched back. Of course he did—Sam could never hope to match the reflexes of an identified supernatural, but he had been fighting other freaks his entire life, maybe even before Celler had become a vamp. Sam didn’t catch the eyes, but he did catch his fingers in the wire around both sets of Celler’s teeth. He jerked the vampire’s head sideways and down and heard his neck crack—bones Crusher had probably broken snapping again. He forced Celler to the floor, his other hand pulling at the blanket in the vamp’s icy grip.

Celler snarled, twisted, and managed to kick Sam’s feet out from under him, but Sam jerked hard on the vampire’s shoulder and arm as he fell, throwing him over his own body and headfirst into a row of cots—many with monsters in them—before he hit the concrete floor. 

The spectators screamed, snarled, and swore when Celler slammed into them. Sam gave him a punch for good measure, and someone was wailing about the guards coming at any moment ( _“oh stop, please stop!”_ ) but all Sam really cared about was that Celler still had his blanket.

A smart freak would have let it go, but the thing was, he really couldn’t buy another one. Sure, Victor liked Sam’s mouth on his cock, but he liked variety too, and Sam had a good instinct for when Victor wanted him on his knees and when he wanted him on a cutting table. If Sam tried to get another blanket, Victor would get his blow, and Sam would get another interrogation, if he got anything at all.

So he ignored the way his back ached from hitting the concrete and launched himself at Celler. They tumbled together into another row of monsters, and soon enough everyone was punching, biting, and doing their best to rip each other’s throats out.

In the midst of the melee, Celler and a couple other vamps—vampires stuck together, even when they hated each other; it was some kind of nest-bonding instinct and tended to get them in trouble—managed to pin Sam to the floor, the very blanket he had been fighting for binding his hands to his chest. Celler kneeled on him, knees digging under Sam’s ribs.

“We’re gonna  _bleed_ you,” he growled, sinking his fingers into Sam’s throat under his collar. “Then I’m going to bleed  _into_ you, you little cocksucker. Wanna be a vamp, like me? Wanna burn, like me? Let’s see how much shit you get when they wire that pretty mouth shut.”

Sam bucked beneath the vampires, almost blanking out from the panic. Celler couldn’t, he couldn’t take away Sam’s only bargainable skill, he couldn’t spread the vampirism.  _They’ll kill you_ , he thought frantically.  _You can’t they’ll kill you if you bleed me._

He didn’t give a flying fuck if Celler ended up under a blessed knife in interrogation. He didn’t give a damn. He just knew that as a vampire, he would have nothing, less than nothing. In Freak Camp, vamps were in constant pain from the sun, never had enough blood to fill them up, and could survive incredible amounts of damage without dying, without ever dying. There had been this vampire woman Sam knew once, and the guards had—

Sam’s mind shied away from the memory, wouldn’t even remember it  _(that could be you, under Crusher)_  clearly. He could imagine very few things worse than being stripped of the possibility of death.

Indeed, there was only one thing worse.  
 _  
Dean couldn’t ever take a vampire out of Freak Camp. Not even Dean could do that, even if he’s stupid enough to want to._

Sam struggled and fought harder than he ever could or would against the guards, he repeated every piece of profanity he had ever heard, he jerked his arms and legs in their iron grips until his sockets ached, but the vamps had the leverage and the advantage.

Then Kayla jumped on Celler’s back and sank her teeth into his shoulder.

Celler jerked back, knocking off another vampire on the way, and suddenly Sam had a way to claw and kick and beat the other vampires aside.

He expected the shapeshifter to abandon him after Celler threw her off, but she stayed next to him, kicking, biting, and clawing like a monster twice her size.

What she lacked in skill she made up for in instinct and surprise. Shifters couldn’t catch vampirism, but most still didn’t use their teeth in a fight. She and Sam, miraculously, held their own against four vampires. Sam knew that the sick glee he felt slamming his fists into their bones ( _my fucking blanket!_ ) couldn’t last, but it was good, right then, to fight and hold his own.

He wasn’t so sunk in the adrenaline of the fight he didn’t notice when the recording lights on the corner cameras went off, or when the shutters locked automatically on the vents—a preparation in case the administrators had to gas the monsters to control them.

Other monsters noticed, too. In the ensuing panic, he wheeled to Kayla and grabbed her by the shoulders.

She almost punched him in the face, but hesitated when she realized it was him.

 _Don’t hesitate,_ Sam thought. _Don’t trust that just because it’s me, I won’t hurt you. Don’t trust that just because it’s my face, it’s me._  
  
“Hide,” he said. “Now. Don’t come out!”

She stared. “But you’re—“

“Don’t let them see you, do what I say, hide  _now_!” Sam shoved her roughly toward a set of cots that hadn’t been knocked over, and spun just in time to catch a clawed hand before it ripped open his face. He hoped she had listened to him. Becca had always had him hide under a cot in the corner during brawls.

When the guards burst in, clubbing down anything that moved hard enough to break bone, Sam stopped fighting the second a guard appeared in front of him. David Campbell—doing his round of yard duty—slammed his club into his diaphragm and dropped Sam to the floor, gasping. The other monsters—those that needed an extra blow to be incapacitated, or maybe just those that the guards knew could take the abuse—had more than the breath knocked out of them.

The guards dragged them to the yard. Sam breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t see Kayla in their arms. Hopefully, coming into the fight late, as she had, the guards wouldn’t search thoroughly enough to find the shapeshifter girl.

When Sam was chained between the whipping posts, back-to-back with another monster so that all the brawlers could be strung up, he saw that Celler had both legs twisted at unnatural angles.

The guards strung them tight between the posts—some monsters were tied to the posts because there weren’t enough gaps—and then did a little more work on the instigators. Sam got punched repeatedly in the stomach and across the face, and he could hear Celler making harsh, choking noises, his equivalent to screaming, a few posts over.

The guards left them eventually. The icy wind cut through Sam’s thin clothes, and it felt like the only warmth in the world came from the shifter chained at his back. Even the floodlights and stars Sam could barely pick out in the dark night made it seem more cold.

 _I hope dawn comes quickly,_  Sam thought, hands already turning numb. But he knew it wouldn’t.

~*~

The next morning after roll call, all the combatants were whipped. Davey pushed Sam’s shirt up over his face (“ _Can’t scar that pretty mouth, can we?_ ”) without unchaining him.

After assembly, instead of breakfast, the troublemakers were left on the whipping posts and the rest of the monsters from their barracks were herded back into lockdown, tied to their cots in the same way they had spent the night after the fight. Sam hoped the guards hadn’t been taking their anger out on the other monsters. It would only make life that much harder if they wanted to get revenge.

Kayla found him days later, when he had finally gotten some feeling back in his hands. She had a slightly different face, less pretty and innocent than her original one. Nothing the guards would notice—and cut her open for—but Sam noticed and approved.

She sat next to him and didn’t look at him—not directly at least. Sam still caught quick, furtive glances his direction. That was okay. If anyone noticed, they’d think she was afraid, and fear was acceptable. Much safer, for both of them, if people thought that their relationship was based on fear and not on…whatever it was based on.

It was stupid to care about other monsters. He wasn’t strong enough to be Becca, and he had no honest belief that this shifter girl would survive him. She was still too pretty and still fresh meat.

“I hid,” she said.

“Good,” Sam said.

She shifted her plate slightly to the left. She hadn’t licked it clean. She should learn to do that soon so she could get the most food possible. “You didn't say what I owe you. For the blanket. Unless…”

“I didn’t do it because I care,” Sam said harshly. He couldn’t afford to care. And he didn’t. He wouldn’t. “The guards come in when someone’s making too much noise or shifting. Sometimes they just beat the shit out of the instigator, sometimes they chain everybody to the bed and—“

“Like lockdown,” she said.

Sam nodded. “Yeah.”

“Still, you could have just hit me,” she whispered.

 _Don’t think about it_. “Might not have worked.”

“You told me to hide. You saved me again. What do I owe you, Sam? I know I do.”

Sam thought. He wanted to say it didn’t matter—it disgusted him to think of taking anything from her that he did for the guards, or taking her food—but it did matter. If she hadn’t pushed this, he would have just walked away and it would have been that much easier, later, to listen to her screaming under the guards. Easier when she started calling him Pretty Freak and whore.

Now he had to care, if only the same way he cared about anything that could keep him alive or kill him. 

“We helped each other,” he said at last. “I protected myself by giving you a blanket so you’d stop crying. You jumped Celler because of the blanket. I told you to hide because you jumped Celler.”

Kayla looked like she knew he was giving her an easy deal. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I still owe you.”

 _If not for you, I’d be a vamp right now_. “We’re not friends,” Sam told himself as much as her. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.” The big words helped him distance himself.

"What's that mean?"

"I help you, you help me. We keep owing each other favors."

“So we keep helping, and it’ll even out in the end?” Kayla said. He nodded. “I’ll save you some day.”

Sam almost flinched. No one was saving anyone else in Freak Camp. The only person who would ever save him—maybe, possibly, please—was Dean. “Whatever.”

Sam stared at his empty plate—the guards were taking their time kicking the monsters out of the mess hall today—until he came to a decision. If they were ( _not_ _friends_ ) combining resources to survive, he might as well tell her now. At least he might not have to hear her scream.

“When Crusher comes for you, don’t fight, don’t struggle, don’t cry, don’t make a sound,” he said. “Sometimes, if you’re silent,” _blank, absent_ , “they get tired and they finish faster, they come back less often.”

She stared. “Silent.”

“It’s best if you can blank out…separate…like you’re not even there. So you don’t have to think about it.”

He couldn’t read the expression in her shapeshifter eyes. She looked away, down, and then nodded.

He hoped the things that kept him alive would help her as well. Only because she still owed him and it would be nice, however briefly, to have a monster willing to take his advice.

And maybe— _don’t get your hopes up, Sam, the fight was a one-time thing, she owed you_ —watch his back.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean woke up the morning of his eighteenth birthday buzzing from the twin highs of monster asses kicked and pain medication. Yesterday had been his first truly independent hunt. Dad had been away on a job—one of the jobs that he wouldn’t tell Dean about, just saying it was something he had to do himself—so Dean handled it. It had been a pain working in research around school—high school was a pain in the  _ass_ —and using public transportation to get to the big, downtown library had been just embarrassing, but it was all worth it for the adrenaline of the successful hunt.

Dean had called Dad before he went after the ogres—this time, he called the landline number that always just went straight to a message machine, the number people called with information on hunts, or just to get in contact. He wasn't going to repeat the mistake of calling his portable phone while John was on a hunt. In case he didn't survive, Dad would know where he had gone and be able to take care of the problem after him. 

He hadn't been expecting Dad to show up at the last minute to drag him away from the wreckage of the quaint little waterwheel—Dean was still a little appalled that of all the dark places the ogres could have settled, they chose the inside of a mini-golf waterwheel—but it was okay that Dad had been there in the end, because Dean hadn't really needed him. Though he had to admit, it had been nice to ride away curled in a blanket in the front seat of the Impala rather than trying to wheedle his way onto a bus back to the apartment without getting an ambulance called on him.

Dean shifted slightly in bed, turned his head, and froze. John was sitting on the other bed, watching him with a thoughtful, almost soft look on his face.

“Hey, Dad,” Dean croaked. He sat up, cautiously, not sure why his father was still just sitting there, watching him.

"Hey, Dean," he said. "Feeling okay?"

Dean thought about it. His head hurt, and his shoulder ached—not broken, thankfully—where he'd gotten smacked by a ham-like fist, and he had bruises everywhere (fucking golf-ball-throwing sons of bitches) but he felt good. Really good, on a level that had nothing to do with bruises and broken bones. 

"Awesome," he said.

John looked down at his hands, and then back up. "You did good out there, son."

Dean blinked and grinned, an entirely new kind of high burning through him. He knew he rocked that hunt—two dead monsters, no civilian casualties, and minimal collateral damage—but there was a world of difference between the satisfaction of a job well done and one of John's rare compliments.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

John nodded, as though even that brief moment had burned away all his words. "Eighteen today."

Dean blinked. "Sir?" He had only killed the two monsters. Unless Dad was counting the ghosts he'd help burn, in which case it was a hell of a lot more than eighteen.

John smiled at him, and Dean basked in the pride on his face, even if he didn't quite understand. "You're eighteen. An adult."

He still didn't understand."Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I forgot, you know, with the hunt? But, whatever. I can smoke, fuck, vote, and..." Dean smirked. He couldn't help it. "Dad, I'm already doing all of those that I want."

John laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." He took a deep breath. "Dean, I know I've missed a lot of them, but happy birthday." He held out a thick letter and a small white box.

Dean took both warily. He especially didn't like the look of that letter. It looked like it could have anything in it, from a new set of lock picks to a letter from his dead mother. Under John's eyes, he slit it open with his knife.

He read the papers, and then looked up, eyes wide. "You signed me up for a hunting license?"

"Yeah." John's face broke into a broad smile. It looked strange on his usually tense, focused face. "I put in the paperwork for you months ago, even before this hunt. And then you just went out and  _did_ the job...I'm damn proud of you, Dean."

Dean looked down at the paper, sure his eyes were tearing up like some kind of crybaby. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I always try to make you proud."

"And you always do," Dad said. "Go on, open the next one. I figured now that you're official, you might like some wheels."

Dean cracked the box carefully. Yeah, a car would be damn nice sometimes, if only so he didn't have to ride the bus like a loser or try to walk home if he broke a bone or something on a hunt, but...he didn't really want a new car either. Nothing else would be as sweet as the Impala, and...being in the Impala had always meant he was home, that Dad was back, and they would be okay. Even without Mom, even without food, even with Dad working his way through a bottle, it was home. Hard to give that up forever, opening a little box.

And then he got the lid off and his jaw dropped. He looked up and stared, his mouth working, while Dad grinned at him.

"These are for the Impala!"

"You love that car," Dad said, then winked. "I know you'll keep the rust spots off her."

"Oh my God, thank you, Dad!" Dean jumped off the bed and gave John a hug, spontaneous, crushing, exuberant. He couldn't remember the last time they had hugged, but it felt right, when John had just given him the best present of his life. "Best birthday ever."

When they broke away, John was still smiling, and kept his hand on Dean's shoulder. "You'll do good, son. Go take her for a spin."

Only later, after Dean had rushed out and turned the key in the Impala, which was  _his_ , all his, did it occur to him to wonder what Dad would be driving if Dean had the Impala.

~*~

After dinner, Sam went out to the front of Head Alley, hunching his shoulders to minimize the shivering. This was why it was worth it, he thought, so he wouldn't be this cold once he got to go to bed. And even though the guards had their comfy thick jackets, they didn't like to stick their bare dicks out in the cold, even if they were getting swallowed a moment later, so at least they took him inside to their break room. Breaking room, as some monsters called it.

Sam pressed his fingers into his armpits, wishing Victor would hurry up. He wasn't usually tardy to collect Sam's weekly blanket rent.

"He said you'd be waiting here like a good dog."

Sam's head jerked up, and he took an involuntary step back, knocking against the barracks wall. This was not who was supposed to show up.

"Miss me?" Bernard grinned, showing the black gaps between his teeth. He worked in Intensive Containment, and Sam didn't see him around often.

Sam's breath came out in quick puffs of air.  _Dammit_ , the detached part of his brain snarled,  _could you be even more transparent?_  He swallowed, his mouth twice as dry as it had been just a moment before. "My deal was with Victor."

"Yeah, and I worked out another deal so I'm the one collecting your payment this week." He reached up to squeeze Sam's cheeks and lips with his gloved hand before snapping the lead onto his collar. Giving it a slight shake, he smirked. "Word on the street is you've gotten even more talented since the last time I had the pleasure of fucking your mouth, so I came to see for myself."

 _It's just the cold,_ Sam told himself, as they headed toward the breaking room.  _I would have been shaking this much anyway._

The burst of hot air as they crossed the threshold barely registered with Sam. He stood stiffly as Bernard unhooked him, then planted a hand on his head to push him to his knees. Sam went down without resistance. "Good boy," he said, then turned and walked away, to the padded chair across the room. He slouched in it, hands on the armrests and knees spread apart. He looked at Sam for several moments before issuing his first order.

"Crawl, Pretty Freak."

Sam moved forward on his hands, head lowered. The numbness was setting in quickly now, for which he was grateful; he already felt detached, blank, indifferent to what he was doing now or about to do. If only it would extend to his ears.

"Unzip me. Good. Now take me out, and if your fingers are cold, I'll knock your teeth out."

Sam paused, then pressed his fingers between his thighs for a long moment, then against his neck under the collar, and to his face to test the temperature. No way they wouldn't be chilly to Bernard, but there was nothing more he could do about it.

The guard was only half-hard, but he grunted as Sam took him all in his mouth at once, sucking hard. Most of the time they held his head and did the work for him—which was easiest for him to blank out until they were done—but when they were more demanding, Sam had a few tricks to speed up the process.

But Bernard never came quickly.

He watched him bob for a few minutes, as Sam's jaw began to burn and neck ache from the angle, and then he started to talk. The usual stuff at first, nothing Sam hadn't heard before or hadn't become calloused to, until -

"Have you done this for that Winchester kid yet?"

That broke Sam's rhythm, just for a moment, but it was enough of a signal to Bernard.

"Ah," he breathed. "Guess not. Don't know what he's waiting for, you've had plenty of practice by now. Or does he like to think he'll be the first cock in your mouth? Hmm, wonder what he'd have to say if he could see you here."

Sam made a choked noise, screwed his eyes shut even though he had been told to keep them open and on Bernard's face.

"That's right," Bernard said, pleased. "Maybe next time he drops by, we'll line up and show him how well you suck each of us off, what a well-trained whore you are. Pretty sure that'll be the last you see of him, though he might turn you over and finally take that virgin ass that's been waiting for him. Don't stop, freak, use that slut tongue."

Sam was losing control over his breathing, his throat working around the head of Bernard's cock, and it was enough to send Bernard over the edge. He groaned, seizing the back of Sam's head to slam him down, then pulled him back by his hair to finish over his face. He paused for a moment to admire the effect, then shoved Sam back hard so he fell onto the floor.

Bernard watched him lie there, panting and shaking, but, even through the misery and the pain, Sam remembered his lessons and made no move to wipe his face. "Good," Bernard sighed, and zipped himself up. "That's exactly what you're good for, you miserable piece of shit." Standing, he kicked him in the side, casually, just to see him jerk. "Get out of here, I'm sick of looking at you."

Sam scrambled up and stumbled out.

The cold outside the breaking room hit him like a blow, but he didn't fucking care. Sam checked— _always so careful, Sam, what damn good does it do you?_ — to make sure there were no guards in sight before half-collapsing against the wall and emptying his stomach of bile and semen and mostly digested canned corn from dinner. 

He wiped his face down, hands shaking, trying to believe that his face was wet just from jizz, and that because the tears were just part of the price Bernard always extorted and Sam had to pay, they didn't mean anything else.

~*~

Dean thought it was stupid to be in Massachusetts chasing ghosts. Literally chasing ghosts, there was some kind of stupid haunted livestock truck, and it was just so stupid.

And so far away from Nevada.

He hated the truck, too. Dad's big black truck. The truck that he used to disappear on Dean more often, further away, sometimes leaving a note, sometimes just a phone message a couple days later. If Dean had known when Dad gave him the keys to the Impala, that that just meant Dad would be gone  _more_ , that he would have such faith in Dean that he wouldn't even warn him when he disappeared...well, Dean didn't know that he would have thrown the keys back in Dad's face—damn, he loved this car—but he might have started researching ways to sabotage Silverados, Tundras, F-150s, and worked his way down the list. As it was...fuck. Just fuck.

Black was fine, and Dean supposed that a truck was practical at least, and it had special iron/silver spiked bumpers and reinforced-steel sides and a fancy, mechanized artillery trunk— _how long were you planning this, Dad?_ —but Dean thought the Impala could take it in a knife fight any day. 

Sometimes, seeing the hulking monster truck—for hunting monsters, haha, not funny—in the parking lot next to his, his damn Impala, he still had a half-smothered urge to slash the tires.

He knew he wasn't exactly being mature about this, but Dean got pissed, and when Dad wasn't there to be pissed  _at_ , it all just built up until Dean wanted to smash something. Preferably a certain fancy-ass, better-than-it-should-be piece of slagsteel.

It wasn't until Dad was gone  _again_ , leaving Dean  _again_ in an ass-backwards town without any hot chicks—or interested guys—that Dean realized he didn't have to just sit where Dad had left him—or go where Dad told him to go—and mope and drink and fuck. He had the fucking Impala, and if there were roads he could drive them, and if there were bridges he could cross them, and John fucking Winchester—who clearly didn't give a damn, who had his truck to keep him company, and didn't fucking need Dean—could find him, or call him, if he wanted to. Dad could find anything.

Dean could drive anywhere. He could drive to Freak Camp if he wanted to, and see Sam.

And like a lightning flash lighting, like a piano tuner striking the right frequency at last, that thought felt damn right. Dean grabbed the Impala's keys, paid the hotel bill—fake credit card again, Dad had taken most of the cash—and hit the road humming at the thought.  _I can see Sam any time I want._

~*~

Sam was scrubbing the new stains off the floor of the mass showers—on his knees with a brush, the astringent cleaning solution stinging his hands, burning like acid in the new burns and cuts—when a guard came in behind him. Sam glanced back through his bangs, saw it was Crusher, and then focused on his job.

It was a bad place to be, on his knees with a guard behind him. Maybe Crusher would cut a deal, go for the blowjob, and he wouldn’t have to risk fighting him off. At least a half dozen guards were trying to get in his pants, but Crusher always had that edge of crazy that scared him, badly.

“Get up, Pretty Freak,” Crusher said. “Winchester wants you.”

Sam kept the first sharp rush of relief off his face. Relief so intense that his hands shook from it and he almost felt lightheaded. Crusher would see the shaking and think it was fear. Might even get off thinking about it later, some other poor fuck mouthing his dick.

The image made Sam think of what he had done. Of all the times—

He didn't have to fake the sick look on his face when he stood up. How could he face Dean, look him in the eye—and Dean would tell him to look him in the eye, he always did, he'd always touch Sam's face to tilt his eyes up, so softly, the calluses on his fingers brushing down the tight skin of Sam's cheek—when he had been about to blow Crusher to get out of a beating? When he'd been hitting his knees in Head Alley almost every day this week to keep his stomach full and to distract Victor from Kayla.

Sam didn't want to go. For a breathless, insane second he thought about say no, saying, "No, I won't see Dean," punching Crusher out, running until they caught him and he fell beneath their clubs. Letting the pain and the blood wash away the scalding shame that threatened to eat him from the inside. Better that than being in the same room with Dean, looking at Dean, contaminating the only good thing in his world with the filth he did every day and didn't even feel any more.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't fucking walk into that room.

But running was suicide. And of all the ways Sam could kill himself, saying "no" to a hunter was not the one he ever wanted to pick. They would probably just drag him in to Dean anyway, dump him bleeding on the floor. They might apologize that Sam couldn't suck Dean off, with his jaw shattered like that, but at least he still had an ass, right?

_That's all you need, Sam, an ass and he can make himself happy._

Crusher pushed him out of the showers, and Sam nervously wiped his hands on his shirt, wishing he could stop to get the cleaner off before Dean—

Dean touched him. Almost every visit Dean touched his arm, his face, or his shoulder, and it was so fucking different from the way the guards touched him. Soft, slow, not to hurt or hurry or because Sam was looking at him wrong, but...Sam didn't know why Dean touched him like that, but it was one of those things that he couldn't stop thinking about. Couldn't stop wanting. The nights when he couldn't get Dean and his touches out of his head, he rolled over on his stomach, gripped the cot legs with both hands—afraid the slightest roll of his hips might be caught by the cameras—and breathed deeply until the temptation was gone. 

Maybe Sam wouldn't have to talk, wouldn't have to say anything. Maybe today was the day Dean would turn him over the table and take him, no preliminaries, no gentle questions, no smiles, no jokes that Sam didn't quite understand but laughed at anyway. Maybe today Dean would grind his face into the table and pull his pants down and Sam's few, attenuated dreams would go down in the feel of Dean forcing his way inside him.

Shit, he should believe that. He should remember what he was, a worthless monster, a boy with only one use for his mouth, and he should not believe that nothing with Dean could hurt that badly. That Dean would never hurt him.

Of course, it would hurt. Sam had been around enough times when the guards bent over some guy unwilling or unable to wheedle out of it to know that it would hurt like hell, that he would bleed, probably scream, maybe not get up afterward if Dean was too rough. But he still wanted that. He wanted it to be  _Dean_ because Dean would be touching him then, holding his shoulders while he forced his way in, maybe holding him there after he was done instead of dropping him or telling him to put his damn pants on. Nothing Dean did to him could be that bad, if Dean really wanted it.

Better Dean than any guard, any other hunter. Better that Dean got that, the last part of Sam that hadn't gone through a dozen hands, before someone else took it. Because then Sam would have nothing left, nothing new to offer. Dean could have anything--why would he want what everyone else had used and cast aside?

By the time Sam crossed the yard, he was calm, almost hopeful. Of all the things in Sam's world, Dean was the only one who could rattle him, could send him from horror, to despair to...almost happy in the time it took to walk from one end of FREACS to the other. He wanted Dean. He wanted Dean to do anything he wanted to him. Hunter or no, real or no, Dean was the best thing in his world. And any day he saw Dean was a good day in Sam's book. And that would be true no matter how it ended.

Then Victor smiled at him when he got to Reception, and his stomach bottomed out again.

"Here to see Winchester, are you, Pretty Freak?" he said, making a small mark on his clipboard. "Good boy. Dean's looking good, you know, a full hunter. He has special plans for you today - requested a private interrogation in room three. He'll treat you the way you deserve." If anything, Victor's expression got nastier. "Real shame. No cameras."

Sam's head shut off. Sure, a hunter would ask for No Cameras if he wanted to fuck a monster in private— _please, God, just let him fuck me, hard as he needs_ —but he might also ask for No Cameras if he wanted to cut a monster up without bothering with asking any questions, without bothering with the forms of an 'interrogation'.

Suddenly, Sam couldn't think of Dean, a hunter, without thinking of the other hunters, the other guards who had tied him down and laughed while they hurt him, even while the cameras ran. He could imagine Dean smiling at him while he—

Sam shut down the thought, clamped down hard, retreated until he felt nothing, until he almost couldn't feel the concrete floor beneath his feet. Dean could do whatever he wanted with him, of course, Sam was just a monster. That's what he told himself. But he knew, deep down where he hid all the things he would never be able to admit he wanted, that if Dean tied him down and started cutting, Sam wouldn't be able not to care. And without that shell, the shell that had kept him alive through nine years of hell, he didn't think there would be anything left of him. Or anything he would find worth saving.

~*~

Dean parked the Impala on the lean strip of visitor parking outside of FREACS and walked to the main gates, feeling inexplicably nervous. It wasn't the first time he had been to the camp, not even the first time he had come through the doors alone—Dad often got sidetracked by other hunters that wanted just that one last piece of good advice from the great Winchester—but this was the first time he was there without anyone else. No Dad, no Bobby, not even a Campbell letting him in.

There was nothing different about the gates, about the cameras that tracked his movement to the main doors, or the beige, neutral waiting area. Dean ignored the battered blue chairs and leaned on the counter in front of the bulletproof glass. He put his nose very close to it and smiled into the receptionist's eyes.

Madison was a pretty brunette, but too shy for Dean to really enjoy the chase. Or catching her. But he  _did_ enjoy making her blush.

"Hey beautiful," he said.

"Mr. Winchester," she said.

Dean groaned. "Pleeeease don't call me Mr. Winchester. That's my dad." He grinned. "I'm always just Dean to you, Madison." He was, by preference, always Dean to everyone, which she knew, but enjoyed hearing anyway. Dean wondered how many hunters forgot her name. Which was stupid, because she could get you anything. She remembered a ton, too. Dean didn't know how she could sit outside Freak Camp and watch the hunters come in and do what they 'had to do', but he supposed she might not even know what went on behind the doors.

"Dean," she said, then looked down at the computer he could just barely see, if he almost pressed his face against the glass—knowledge from his younger days, not something he would do at the mature age of eighteen. At least not to Madison. Dean was proud of the fact that these days he was only an ass to people he didn't like. "Which monster do you want to see?"

Dean hesitated only a second. He'd never been asked that before; all their previous meetings had been informal, he'd come with Dad or Bobby and ended up in the General Area looking for Sam. But, still, he knew that number well. Sometimes he'd found himself staring at it when Sam's shirt slipped lower on his too-thin chest. "88UI6703." Dean leaned back while she typed whatever she usually typed into the computer.

"Your father isn't here today?" she asked, glancing up.

"Nope." Dad was across the country doing something with his big black truck. 

"It says here that you're authorized, but I'm going to have to verify your identification," Madison said. "Please prick yourself with this silver needle for a non-shifter authorization and slide your Agency for Supernatural Control identification card through the slot. You'll have to do this again for security, but you got your ID in D.C., so I have to code it here as well." 

Dean followed the instructions patiently. It was all a formality, he had never seen a hunter turned away.

But Madison tested the small drop of blood with all the care and focus that making sure he was human deserved. Finally she looked up, her face twice as pretty when she smiled. "You're good Mr—Dean. Are there any special requests you want me to file?"

Dean was about to say no, that he'd be fine, and then an idea came to him. "Could I get a private room?" he asked. He felt his stomach flip a little, though he wasn't sure where the nerves came from. He didn't know what he would do with Sam out of view of the guards and the other monsters, but he knew that he wanted to see what he could do, what the ID would let him get away with.

"That would be no problem," Madison said. She keyed in a few more things. "Would something in Reception be fine? Or would you prefer Administration? If you want something in Special Research I'm afraid you're going to have to come back tomorrow, there's a cleaning crew in."

Dean waved a hand. He didn't want to think about why they were cleaning. "Reception is fine."

"Any items you would like to request from the resource room?" she asked. "Most items are freely available, but others require a key..."

"No," he said curtly. 

"Wonderful," Madison said. "You can go right through security, and 88UI6703 will be waiting for you."

Walking through security, getting his weapons checked, the blood and holy water test again, and his person checked for EMF, Dean felt vaguely high: the nerves and the pride he felt being an adult for the first time, not just John's shadow but a hunter in his own right, made him feel cocky, ready for anything.

"Your monster will arrive in a minute," the guard, Victor, said. "You wanna settle in the room? Need any restraints or anything?"

Dean kept the smile fixed on his face. "No. I think I can handle him."

"Good," he said, making a small mark on his clip board. "Anything else I can do?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I want no cameras."

Victor looked up, meeting his eyes, eyebrows raised. And then he chuckled. "Yeah, there's still somethings they won't let you do to monsters, ain't there?"

Dean forced the sick grin onto his face. "Yeah. But what they don't know, doesn't hurt them."

Dean sat at the table and watched the camera until the little recording light went off. Then he took a deep breath and put his head in his hands.  
 _  
What are you doing, Dean Winchester?_

The hardest part had been rattling off the ID number and not saying he wanted to see Sam.

After what seemed like an hour, but couldn't have actually been more than fifteen minutes, the handle of the door turned and Sam walked in. 

Sam looked tired, thinner than he was the last time Dean came (though Dean hadn't thought the short, skinny kid could  _get_ thinner), his eyes sunken and dark. He didn't look healthy, but what hit Dean hard in the gut was Sam's blank, hollow lack of expression. He could have been a sleepwalker or a ghost. Dean looked, a little panicked, for some kind of recognition, and thought he caught a flicker of some half-sick, half-longing expression, but then Sam's face slammed back down into the complete, shut-down emptiness.

He sat without a word and put his hands on the table, palms up, hands slightly curled. He didn’t blink. 

Dean shifted. Something was wrong. Something was really fucking wrong. “Hey, Sam,” he said, with no idea what the words would do. Maybe Sam would actually look at him. Maybe he would shatter. Dean couldn't fucking tell.

Thank God, the horrible, hollow-eyed stranger in front of him, changed, relaxed slightly, and became  _Sam_. He didn’t change his position at all, but Dean could see the sharp, brittle edge of fear draining out of him. Sam tilted his head, and met Dean's eyes. His eyes tried to smile, and failed. “Hey, Dean.”

Relieved, Dean reached across to rest his fingers inside Sam's palms. Sam jumped at the contact, but that didn't worry him. Sam always twitched the first time he touched him every meeting. Dean rubbed gently, careful not to push too hard on the reddened skin, smelling a hint of antiseptic. Sam must have been on some kind of cleaning duty again. Whatever Freak Camp used, it left his skin toughened and raw the first few days he used it.

"Hope you don't mind the change," he said, lifting one shoulder to indicate the room. "I was getting tired of people eying us everywhere we went." Sam's eyes flickered to the camera mounted in the upper corner. "I told them to turn it off."

Another layer of blankness thawed off Sam's face. "Just so we could..." He swallowed, a smile and some deeper, softer emotion flickering stronger in his eyes, a spark that could almost light. "You can do that?" When he glanced up, catching Dean's eyes for just a moment, Dean couldn't interpret the emotions there. Something like astonishment, with an edge of longing that Sam would never admit.

Dean grinned. He never failed to get a nice buzz from producing that reaction from Sam. "I'm a Winchester. What are they going to do, tell me no?"

Sam ducked his head, but Dean saw the flash of a grin before it disappeared. 

Dean squeezed his fingers. "Sorry it's been so long. I was chasing a bunch of ghouls down the east coast, then got stuck hunting down a swamp monster in Florida. And then I was in  _Massachusetts_."

"That's okay," Sam said, as he always did. He was looking at Dean's hands over his, the faintest smile still on his face. "So you got them all?"

Dean launched on his stories about the hunts, from the start of the drive down from Ohio and the weird-ass couple he'd met on the way, along with all the other quirky details he'd filed away for Things to Tell Sammy. He probably talked more about that stuff than he did about the actual hunts. He'd used to worry about how awkward it might be to recount his adventures killing monsters to Sam, but he insisted he didn't mind. "They're doing bad things," he'd said. "It's good to kill them."

Still, Dean knew monsters weren't the interesting part of his stories to Sam. He focused more on the interviewing, the lies he'd spun and how the poor saps fell for them every time, because he was just that good. Sam smiled nearly the whole time he talked, and looked him in the face almost as much, if only because Dean's voice insisted _look at me, look at me, Sammy_. Dean was an awesome storyteller, if he did say so himself.

He was finally getting around to the climax of the hunt, which had been pretty badass, the way he'd tracked the vampiric giant gila monster through the marshes and staked out its lair for hours from a vantage point high in a tree.

"Then, right as it started crawling down to its pit, I  _jumped_ its ass -" He grabbed Sam's forearms in emphasis, and Sam gasped sharply, yanking his right arm back.

Dean stopped. He was used to Sam's small twitches, but this had been nothing like that. "Sam?"

"S-sorry," he said, but his face had gone grey, and his eyes blinked fast as they stared at a low point past Dean.

Dean let go of his arm slowly. Sam's sleeves were long enough to cover his knuckles, though they were currently bunched around his wrists. Dean covered Sam's right hand with his own before turning it over and pushing his sleeve down to his elbow.

Sam gasped again, though more from fear than pain, and his body jerked back, though he didn't try to wrench his arm away again. Dean didn't notice. His eyes were fixed on a series of small, circular burns on the inside of Sam's forearms, two of them still shiny and pink, the others darker and scabbed over. Turning his head, Dean saw they formed a smiley face.

Only after Dean had stood up, and Sam twisted his body as far away as he could with Dean's hand locked around his arm, was Dean aware of moving at all. His breath came slow and steady, and his voice only sounded a little tight as he asked, "Who did that to you?"

Sam was trembling, his head bent so close to the table nothing of his face was visible. He didn't answer.

That wasn't fucking good enough. Dean felt his tenuous control slipping. He seized Sam's shoulder with his free hand, shaking him violently and shouting, "Who did it, Sam?"

Even as his head rocked back, Sam kept his eyes tightly shut. "K-K-Karl," he choked out.

Dean released him, pushing back from the table hard enough to knock over his chair as he left the room.

Karl was assisting another interrogation in room four. He had just applied a hot, blessed knife to the vampire's exposed intestines when Dean Winchester kicked in the door.

"What the fuck—" he started, backing away from the vampire while the other interrogator, a hunter, went for the weapons he had left near the door so they wouldn't get bloodsplattered.

Dean grabbed a red-hot iron poker—also blessed—from the burner and advanced, something blank and wild in his eyes.

When the other hunter tried to charge him to get his weapons, Dean punched him hard along the jaw and sent him smashing into the burner, scattering coals and ash over the floor. Then Dean grabbed Karl by the collar.

"Why the fuck did you do it?" he snarled. "You get your jollies marking up kids like Sam? What the fuck did he do? Can you tell me one fucking thing he did, you cock-sucking sadistic son of a bitch?"

Karl clawed at Dean's hand, his eyes going wide when he couldn't break the grip. "Let me go, you crazy bastard!" he yelled. "Put that fucking poker down!"

Dean pushed him away and Karl dropped, going for the knife he'd left in the vampire. Dean swung the poker around, tip glowing, and cracked it into Karl's chest and shoulder. He heard bones crack, probably the collarbone, maybe a rib, but he could still see the red wounds on Sam's arm—not just those fucking burns, but welts and cuts and old scars that had faded into his skin—it wasn't fucking enough to break a few bones. He stepped, hard, on Karl's broken shoulder.

"I'm gonna mark you up, you son of a bitch," he said. And then he pressed the glowing end of the poker to the guard's face.

Karl screamed, and other guards started pouring into the interrogation room, ready to subdue the threat.

It took three men to pull Dean off. 

They were better than the cops he'd fought off when he was thirteen, but they still had to punch the air out of his lungs before they could manhandle him to a room in the nearest administration office.

 _Makes sense_ , Dean thought.  _You have more experience beating up children._

When they threw him into the room—the deep blue carpeting, hardwood desk and bookshelves, and leather chairs a striking contrast from the bare beige room and plastic table where he had been talking with Sam—they closed and locked the door behind him. The doors were just as solid as the rest of the furniture. The only real similarity between the two rooms: designed so nothing could get out. Dean straightened slowly, feeling the new bruises on his face and trying to catch his breath. His cousin, Mark Campbell, was sitting on the edge of the desk, glaring at a bookshelf. Then he looked at Dean, and the clear anger in his eyes stiffened Dean's back. 

"What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?" Mark seemed to search for words to describe his outrage and couldn't come up with anything. "What the  _hell_ is wrong with you?"

Dean sat sullenly, glaring. Who the fuck did Mark think he was, his father?

"Let me get this clear," Mark continued. "You met with your particular freak, 88UI-whatever, in Reception 3. Then you charged into Reception 4, knocked out a hunter—also legally interrogating a monster, by the way—beat a guard and then burned him with a poker. Have I left anything out?"

Dean folded his arms and stared stonily back. He had no obligation to explain himself to these Campbells.

"Look, you might have gotten away with that when Uncle Samuel was Director, but Jonah's not going to put up with shit like this. You have problems with the staff, you take it up outside of FREACS. You have problems with the monsters, you file the fucking paperwork." Mark took in his hardened expression, and shook his head incredulously. "You really do think you're something, don't you? You and your old man both."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean snapped.

Mark lifted his hands, palms out. "Nothing! Jesus, kid, you seriously need to get into anger management."

" _I_ need to? I'm not the one who's fucking  _torturing_ kids!"

Mark's eyes narrowed. "Monster kids, Winchester. Did you forget that?"

Dean hissed, fingers still itching to smash, break  _something_. He was still so angry, could still feel the fury pounding in his blood. He didn't give a fuck what Mark was saying, what arguments they had - he couldn't stand the thought that these bastards had been hurting Sam while he'd been away shooting stuff and getting laid. "You had no fucking right."

Mark started to laugh, then cut himself off. "We have every fucking right, Winchester. Then again, you and your old man never did get on the family boat, did you?" He mimed shooting a gun between Dean's eyes. "Uncle Sam wants  _you_." He laughed again, and then paused, a thoughtful, intent look coming into his eyes. "What are you saying? You want to lay some kind of...claim to this particular monster?"

"Yes," Dean said. "Yes, I do."

Mark's eyebrows shot up, his mouth forming a thoughtful little o. "Well then. You should've fucking filed the paperwork, asshole. Or  _said_  something. I mean, we'd noticed how you always went after him, but Winchester Sr. said..."

"This has nothing to do with my dad," Dean interrupted. "Sam is mine. Got that? He's mine. Gimme whatever shit papers you need to get that through your skulls. I don't want any of you sons-of-bitches touching him."

Amusement visible in his eyes, Mark smirked. "Touching him? My, my, I had no idea, Winchester. How does Dad feel about that?"

"Shut your mouth, Campbell. Did you hear me? Sam is  _mine_." Every time Dean said it, he felt better, more certain and true that this was the way the world should work, Sam being  _his_.

"Yeah, yeah." Mark straightened off the desk. "We'll put a note on his file. But this doesn't get you off the hook, Dean. We respect hunters'...interests when we can, but legally, all the monsters belong to us and we treat them according to our discretion. You have no right to assault an employee who's only doing his job, and you don't get special treatment just because you're Mary's son." He ignored how Dean tensed and tightened his fists. "You're just lucky the Director isn't here today. He'd chew up your ass and spit out your tailbone. I'm making a report suspending you from FREACS for the next eight weeks, and as soon as you leave this office you'll be escorted from the facility. And next time you come, don't fucking shove pokers in the faces of my staff."

"What? No." Dean stood up from his chair, took half a step forward. "I need to see Sam again before -"

Mark cut him off sharply. "With the shit you pulled today, you're lucky we're letting you back in at all. Trust me, this is light, because you're young, stupid, and family, but don't expect to slide like this again." He considered. "I could cut your suspension down to two weeks from eight weeks, maybe, if you apologized to Karl -"

"When your tits freeze in hell," Dean snapped. 

"Yeah, didn't think so." Mark shrugged. "Get out of my sight, Winchester. Take some time to cool off. You've got the license, you're a real hunter now, so be professional, cut out the tantrums. Try not to mutilate anyone on the way out."

Dean stood and stared at Mark, contemplating the satisfaction of punching him into his fancy wooden bookshelves versus leaving with any kind of dignity.

Eventually, more for Sam's sake, so everyone would take him seriously about keeping their fucking hands off him— _I'll be back, Sammy, sorry I fucked up today_ —he left quietly, albeit with a few snarls for the guards to keep their hands off him, and didn't look back.

~*~

After Dean had gone, slamming the solid iron-reinforced door on his way out, Sam collapsed into his chair and shook.

What had he done? How had he made Dean so angry? It was just cigarette burns. He shouldn’t have flinched in any way, that was clear now, but it was just that it had been a surprise, to have Dean’s hands  _right there_ where the pink burns were still raw and tender. Karl had given eyes to the smile barely a day ago when Sam had not properly told him what he wanted to do to the guard’s cock. The worst part, the absolutely worst, was that he had only jumped so much because he had let his guard down, because he had been relaxed—shit, being with Dean was the only time he allowed himself to relax, and one of the times when he absolutely shouldn’t or he’d fuck it up—and then when it  _hurt_ he hadn’t been able to stop the reaction.

He wanted to hear the end of the story. He wanted to keep watching Dean smile. He wanted to tell him about the last book he had been allowed to read that wasn’t about monsters. It had been about weaponry, and there had been a section about altering motorcycle engines to get the maximum speed out of the vehicle. Maybe Dean knew how the information could be applied to the Impala. And even if he didn’t, he would have  _cared_.

But instead of more time with Dean, Sam was alone in Interrogation Room 3 with nothing to do but think. He had been in there when they asked him if he ever had visions, psychic projections, nightmares that became real. There had been a specialized rack, and they had pinned his arms—

Sam jerked his mind away—interrogations weren’t that often and best forgotten as fast as possible—and focused hard on the chair Dean had knocked over on his way out. He had been so angry, terrifyingly angry. Sam’s neck felt slightly strained from the force of Dean’s shaking, and the wounds on his arm and shoulder hurt where Dean had held him.

Sam didn’t even begin to think that was all Dean was going to do to him. He didn’t know  _why_ Dean had been angry, but there had been so much rage on his face that Sam got sick just thinking about it. Maybe he’d come back with a rod or a whip to punish Sam for whatever it was. That would be the kind of beating that he could get any day from any guard and wouldn’t be so bad.

But the longer Dean stayed away, the more Sam just wanted him to come back. _Bring the hot irons, the flaying knives, the boiling holy water. Bring the clamps, the flails, the electric shock machine. Just please, don’t let Dean leave and never come back._

Maybe he had  _known_ just by looking at the smiley face what Sam had done. Karl had said the first time, when he did the mouth, that it could either be a smiley face or a frowny face, that Sam could either be a good boy (and keep his fingernails next time) or a bad boy. So Sam had been good to Karl and Lonny and Davey and that hunter who had asked the questions, and Karl had kept his word.

Maybe Dean knew all that just from looking at the little smile (“ _You were a good boy, Pretty Freak. Just gonna mark down my smile to remind you to keep being a good boy.”_ ) and he was so disgusted he would never come back.

Sam sat alone in the room, in the silence, and did his best not to move, not to twitch, not to show his panic or his fear. It was all he could do not to scratch at the healing burns as though if he could rip them off his arm—like a shifter—Dean would come back.

It had been at least four hours—Sam had started counting when it became clear that Dean wasn’t coming back _soon_ —when the door opened. Sam looked up hopefully—he had been analyzing the table, tracing out pictures in the faded blood stains the way Dean had taught him to do with clouds—but it was Victor.

Sam swallowed, and let his mind blank out a little.

“Get up, freak,” Victor said.

Sam stood and walked to the guard. Victor snapped a flimsy leash onto his collar.

“The hunter gone?” Sam asked. He’d wrestled with the risks of asking at all, but decided in the end he had to know. He wasn’t stupid enough to use Dean’s name.

Victor scowled and slapped him, but not hard, not even hard enough to leave a bruise. Weird. “Winchester Junior’s gone, freak. Must have decided he didn’t want your ass today.”

Sam’s mouth went dry.  _Dean’s gone, Dean’s gone_. He seized desperately onto the only word that gave him even a shadow of hope. “Today, sir?” he asked.

Victor raised his club, and Sam braced himself—Victor always hit where it would reopen his knife wounds—but after a moment's hesitation, he lowered it again.

“Fucking Winchester,” he muttered with venom. He tugged on Sam’s collar with the lead line, and Sam followed him from the room. “You better keep doing whatever the fuck you do to keep Winchester obsessed with your ass, Pretty Freak. Because the second he’s gone, we’re going to feed you to Karl, and he’s going to take every inch of his pain out of your hide.”

Sam knew that should probably frighten him. He didn’t know why Karl was in pain, or what he did that kept Dean happy, and uncertainties like that could get you killed in Freak Camp.

All he understood was that Dean had been forced to leave, but he would be back.

It wasn’t a great day. It would have been better to be able to spend time with Dean, but he wasn’t gone forever, so it wasn’t bad at all.

When he got to the yard, all the guards acted jumpy around him, didn’t look at him long, and not one touched him. They seemed to go out of their way to avoid any contact.

And that made it a good day too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"Hey, Pretty Freak!"

Sam closed his eyes before standing up. He had known the distance the guards had given him, acting like he was invisible - and in Freak Camp, being invisible was a damn good thing - wouldn't last. It figured that Victor would be the first to break it. In a group of sadists, thugs, and Campbells—the last of whom didn't like to get their hands dirty outside of Special Research—Victor was the smartest.

Victor was grinning at him, hands on his hips, watching him approach. Sam kept his eyes lowered, shoulders down. "Sir."

"How was dinner?"

Sam swallowed reflexively. The mealworms had gotten into the bread again. He could tell himself all he wanted that it was extra protein, but the two slices of vaguely moving bread and a cup of tepid, flavorless liquid hadn't done anything to make him full or feel less like he was consuming himself instead of the food. He had hated touching the guards, but he had never realized quite how much of his food came from what he did on his knees until it was gone. He didn't answer.

Victor brought his billy club under Sam's chin, nudging his head up. Sam kept his eyes almost shut. "I asked you a question. Still hungry?" He tapped the club sharply against Sam's jaw, and Sam jerked. He clenched his fists, angry at his body's betrayal at so light a move.

"Yes, sir," he muttered, because whatever was going to happen now, it could only be worse if he lied.

The billy club fell away. "I have a nice fat roast beef sandwich back in my office. You want it?"

Sam's face didn't twitch.

"Come on," Victor wheedled. "Don't you even want to know what I'm asking for it?"

Sam inhaled and exhaled deeply through his nose. Might as well ask. "What's the price, sir?"

"Not much. You on your knees in Head Alley. One-time payment." 

Not much work, usually over quickly. Yeah, it was worth it. He just had to hope Victor really did have a sandwich in his office. Sam jerked his head in a nod.

"Did I read that right? Let's be absolutely clear." Victor held up his hands, open and mock-innocent. "I'm not forcing you into anything. You are voluntarily offering to blow me in exchange for a treat, something extra that monsters shouldn't get. So don't go running to Winchester that you've been raped, when I'm doing you a favor. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you don't want it, you can walk away right now. If you want it, you gotta tell me,  _clearly_."

Sam sucked in his breath. "No, sir. I want it."

"Good." Turning, Victor strode away to the breaking room, not even looking to see if Sam followed.

  
~*~

They started up again, after Victor, but it was different. They didn't just force him down any more, or wrap his hand around their cocks and hurt him until he jerked them off. There was always something—a sandwich, an apple, a blanket—after, and they always made it very clear that he had to want it. And there were no interrogations at all.

Sam figured that it was all because of Dean—he'd seen what Karl's face looked like now, and it wasn't pretty—and he was both grateful for the space and terrified, every day, that Dean would come back and know what he had done, what he was doing. Dean wanted him untouched, and Sam was anything but. 

He shared with Kayla, when he had more than he could easily use ( _building up credit, for when he needed something and couldn't get it himself_ ). They weren't friends, but she watched his back, and it was good to have at least one monster that wouldn't try to cut his throat for his blankets or just because he was the Whore. He fed her and occasionally gave her advice, which she always took. The guards called her Dream now, because after the first time Crusher had fucked her, she never made a sound when they touched her.

 _"Carpenter's dream," Crusher had said, pushing her into the showers with the other monsters. "Lies still like a board, waiting to get nailed."_

 _Victor looked up. "Not your taste, then?"_

 _"Boring as hell," Crusher said._

A vamp might be Toothy, because he couldn't retract his second set of teeth, and witches tended to get named "Handy"—especially if they put out—the name traveling from one witch to the next as they died or moved on to their executions, but Sam called the shapeshifter girl Kayla, and she called him nothing because she hadn't talked since the first time Crusher spread her legs. 

Until one day, after an assembly demonstration—one naked werewolf, caught planning to escape, between the whipping posts, four guards hurting him any way they pleased until he couldn't scream any more—Sam and Kayla found a place where they couldn't see the bloodstained dirt. Sam leaned against the wall, trying to think only about how it was a good temperature today (bound to get worse, but good right then) while Kayla looked at her hands.

Her voice, when it came out, was rough and emotionless, like the words were put together by someone with a perfect understanding of the meaning but no comprehension of the emotions involved. 

"I want to rip off their dicks and stuff them down their throats."

Sam looked at her in surprise. After a second, he licked his lips and answered the only way he could. "We don't get to want things."

She turned her head to look up at him, face flat and inscrutable, until she spoke with the same utter lack of inflection or feeling. "You want that hunter boy to come see you."

Sam jerked hard, twisting his head sharply away. He had reacted far less during his last beating. No wonder the guards all used that against him, if he was so fucking transparent.

Kayla was still watching him. "Why? What does he do with you?"

He drew his arms tight around his knees, setting his chin between them. How could he possibly talk about Dean's visits - how Dean  _talked_  to him so differently from anyone he'd ever met, how he touched him so lightly and never to hurt, how he never asked anything from him. There weren't any words for it, none Kayla would understand nor believe. Sam didn't have any words for it himself, because he didn't understand it either. It was beyond comprehension or any sort of sense, the brief flashes of light that were Dean's visits, the fact Sam had ever been in his presence. It just was, and while he couldn't have begun to say why Dean always returned to see him and smiled the way he did when he saw Sam, the truth that Dean would come back ( _God, please come back, I'll be good for you_ ) was the only reason Sam didn't rush the guard towers, hoping to get a bullet before a club.

Kayla's eyes remained on him, though if she was impatient with his silence, she didn't show it. "Does he fuck you?" she asked at last.

Sam took a sharp inhale through his nose. "No."

She leaned closer, to get a better glimpse of his face. "But he's going to, right? That's why no one else's fucked you. That's what they all say."

Dean had never said anything about it, not one comment or suggestive smirk, never reached past his hands, shoulder, and occasionally his cheek, but never even his lips. He'd never hurt Sam, even that time he was so angry. "I guess so." He didn't know why else Dean would be so interested in him.

"What's he waiting for?" At last, Kayla's flat tone changed, rising on a note of incredulity.

Sam shrugged and turned away. He wished he could answer, but he just didn't know. She had been silent long enough to understand his silence now. 

~*~

When Dean could finally get back into Freak Camp—eight fucking weeks had never felt so much like forever—he thought at first they were hassling him because of what he’d done to Karl ( _sonuvabitch deserved a lot worse_ ). They took the blood tests a hell of a lot more seriously, practically dumped a cup of holy water over his head,  _and_ read an exorcism. They did an honest-to-God pat down for weapons when he was going through security and for once did not allow him to keep his gun or his knife when he went through. The standard issue rifle they gave him—loaded with a mix of blessed silver and iron buckshot—felt like cheap shit in his hand. 

They tried to give him shit about the sandwich, too, and Elmer Rosenstein insisted on poking through it, but they let him pass eventually. Dean kept his opinion of their asswipery behind his teeth and did his best to smile. If it looked a little bit like he was baring his teeth, well, that was okay too.

Only when he got out into the yard—no private rooms were being issued without appointments, the new cold-eyed Campbell secretary sitting in Madison's chair had said—did he realize that maybe it was about more than just him. The guards were all heavily armed and sweating under the extra weight of flak jackets. There were a lot fewer monsters on the yard, and any that got too close to a guard got a cuff to the head or a club against the ribs. Dean actually saw two monsters get clubbed down in the short walk from Reception to the barracks area.

When he asked where to find Sa—88UI6703, the sandy-haired guard with a healing scrape along his scalp told him to “find the freak yourself.”

Dean felt something in him relax, a fear that had been growing in his chest. Because he hadn’t seen Sam anywhere, and there were so few monsters in the yard and clearly, some kind of shit had gone down….

He found him eventually. Sam was huddled with a group of other monsters in a narrow strip of shade between the barracks, but the second he saw Dean his eyes widened and he scrambled up toward him, into the light.

The first thing Dean saw was Sam’s expression: massive relief washing over the happiness. Then Dean saw the damage.

The sunlight—so bright Dean was squinting even through his sunglasses—brought into sharp relief the faded bruise along Sam’s cheek. He was limping, too, not obviously, but Dean could tell from watching Dad, and practicing it himself often enough, that Sam was placing every step carefully to avoid showing weakness.

“What the hell happened, Sam?” Dean snarled. Not getting enough information last time had landed him in that eight-week shithole. This time he wasn’t going to fucking abandon Sam in some dark interrogation room without telling him anything. This time he would be calm, collected. He would gather information and be polite while filling out whatever  _forms_ it took to beat the fuck's face in. Or at least he would  _wait_ until the guy was off work to jump him and punch  _his_ lights out.

See, Dean Winchester could be rational and professional.  _Suck that, Mark._

Sam stopped, and Dean got a second's glimpse of the smile vanishing under pure fright before Sam dropped his gaze to the ground. Immediately Dean felt like the complete ass he was. Sure, eight weeks had sucked for him. But that had been plenty of time to think of how Sam hadn’t even known what the hell was going on, and Dean had just  _left_ him.

Dean was trying to put together an apology that would actually say what he wanted to say and sound neither flippant nor groveling, when Sam answered the question he thought that Dean had asked.

“There was a…raid,” he said. “About two weeks ago. Demons tried to…I don’t even know, really, we’ve been in lockdown and high security since they tried to breach the loading gate and…I’m sorry I don’t know more, Dean. I’m sorry.” Sam was looking fixedly at some point at the ground.

 _Aw, fuck_. Dean came up and brushed Sam lightly on the arm. “That’s not what I meant, Sam,” he said. Sam’s head snapped up, his eyes wide, but Dean rubbed his arm soothingly. Part of him was just fucking glad that Sam wasn’t flinching from the touch. Maybe there were no more  _goddamn fucking smiley faces burned into his skin_. “No, that’s fine, Sam. I guess that’s why you look a little knocked around.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again, his eyes fallen as sure as gravity to somewhere around Dean's middle.

There was something still going on here, something that Dean didn’t like at all. But he was afraid that grabbing at it would only hurt Sam more. Like a goddamn burn. “Sam, don’t be. I just meant your face and…” Dean gestured to the leg that Sam had been favoring. Guards and monsters were watching—not explicitly, but Dean could tell, he knew from long practice how to tell when someone or something was watching him.

Sam looked relieved. He carefully raised one of his own hands to his face, as though making sure that nothing else had happened to his cheek. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s just because of the raid. Everyone’s been…upset.”

Dean couldn’t stop himself. He put a hand on Sam’s arm again, even though last time he had touched Sam he had hurt him and the time before that…fuck. “Hey, Sam,” he said. “Look at me.” He waited until Sam did. “I’m sorry I was gone so long. I lost my temper and… fuck, I’m sorry. I was so pissed off that they'd been hurting you, and I didn't know - I kinda lost it. They haven’t…you’re okay, right? Now, I mean.”

Sam stared at him, stared at him like Dean had spoken only gibberish, and then smiled. It was the smile that put the sunlight to shame. “I’m fine, Dean. They haven’t…they stopped after…last time.”

Dean nodded. “Good. They hassle you, Sam, you tell me, okay? I’m sure there’s some paperwork I can fill out to let me smash their faces in.”

Sam smiled and ducked his head. “Yeah, probably,” he said. “I’m fine, Dean. They’ve done nothing I haven’t…they’ve done nothing.”

“Good. And it better stay that way.” Dean stretched and wiped his forehead. It was already September, but it was still fucking hot. “Hey, wanna play cards?”

They found a spot in the shade—Dean felt a little bad at how the other monsters just scattered out of the cooler spot next to Reception, but when he glanced at the doors to Administration and saw the guards posted there in heavy armor, he figured he probably wouldn't be able to get himself and Sam inside.

Dean dug in his jacket pockets while Sam shuffled the cards almost as fast as a Vegas dealer.

“Poker?” Sam asked, already dealing five.

“Yeah. Aha!” Dean pulled the squashed sandwich from his pocket and ceremoniously presented it to Sam. “For you!”

Sam froze at the sight of the sandwich, cards fluttering from his hands.

Dean frowned. “Sam? Sam! Are you okay? Dude, I know it’s fish patty but…I thought you should try something new…Sam?”

Sam shook himself. “Sorry,” he said, and his voice was a little hoarse. “I’ve been…eating better lately, and it just…”

Dean looked down at the sandwich, feeling a little bit like shit. Sure, he loved bringing Sam food, but maybe he should be happy for him, that he’d actually been getting enough to eat for a change—Dean knew that the monsters didn’t get much, knew he couldn’t change that except by bringing Sam as much as he could every time—but a selfish part of him was disappointed that the food he brought, the gifts he had, might not be the best part of Sam’s day. “Well, that’s…you still want it, maybe to save for later?”

“Yes, I want it, s—“ Sam said the words as though by rote, and utterly without emotion, until he cut himself off by jerking his head to the side. He curled in on himself, shrinking his shoulders down with his chin to his chest, and clenched his hands over his knee. His grip crushed the queen of diamonds, and he didn’t seem to notice, despite how appalled he'd been the last time he thought he'd bent the corner of one of Dean's cards.

This whole visit was weirding Dean out, because he knew that something was happening, something had happened, and he had no fucking clue what it was. Something was wrong and he didn’t know how to ask, and he didn’t know what he could do about it if Sam gave him an answer.

So he settled for what he knew how to do. He shoved the sandwich into Sam’s hands and shifted a little closer to him. “It has tartar sauce on it,” he said. “I hope you like tartar sauce. I was going to stop at a burger joint like usual, but I was coming from the other direction and there was this fish shack and I figured,  _Hey, never got Sam a sandwich from here before_ , so I pulled over and this chick at the counter…”

Dean talked, and Sam slowly opened the sandwich, took a bite, stopped and smiled. Dean talked until Sam had eaten, until he had dealt out the cards—not poker, Dean didn’t feel up to poker, and he didn’t want to bluff to Sam right now—and they played War until the sun had moved a couple hours in the sky, and Sam was smiling at him, laughing a little with him, and telling him about books he had read and work he had done around the camp. There was this one thing he’d read about altering engines that sounded like it would make the Impala  _purr_  and Dean thought, once again, how amazing it was, that Sam could stay here, never leave, and still be the smartest person Dean knew.

 _I’m getting you out of here, Sammy_ , Dean thought. He just didn’t know when. 

There had to be paperwork for that. And Dean would find it.

~

 _How can he never change? How can he always be wonderful when I’m…?_ Sam stood watching Dean leave for a long time, one hand moving restlessly over the spot where Dean had touched him, over and over again, the taste of tartar sauce on his tongue. Only when he couldn’t see Dean any more, when the guards were starting to notice a monster standing suspiciously out alone—during the raids, monsters had been killed for that, shot down in the yard with silver because everyone was so damn jumpy—did he turn and go back to the shade.

Kayla was waiting for him. When he came, she shoved a werewolf out of the shade and bared her teeth at him when he made a move to come back to the place Sam had taken. Few knew that Kayla could talk, but everyone knew that she could bite. 

When he slid down next to her, the cool of the shade compensating for the heat of too many bodies close together, she turned her head just slightly, eyes watching everything. Her lips moved—her lips often moved, Sam had heard some of the newer guards say they thought she was brain damaged, probably from being under Crusher—but he heard the word.

“Unfucked,” she said.

He gave a short nod, just a jerk of his head downward, in affirmation. _I still am._

Eight weeks, and Dean had still come back to him. Sam had lived through the raid and the new interrogations—all monsters were being interrogated again; after the scare with the demon attack, the Director thought that someone on the inside could be feeding information out—and Dean had come back, just to play cards, to give him a sandwich Sam had paid nothing for. To smile at him.

It never made any fucking sense. But it was still goddamned good.

~*~

Crusher came into the barracks right after bedcheck. He nodded at Lonny, then let his eyes rove over the huddled monsters.

“You sure you’re not in?” he said. “I mean, Davey’s really not that into it, said he’d spell your shift if you wanted. And he doesn’t really give a shit about Maxwell, so missing his bachelor party’s no big deal.”

Lonny shrugged. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. Davey’s a fuck-up, and I’m already on the Campbells' shit list this week. I’ll catch a show later.”

“You sure? We got authorization.”

“I’m sure. Make the choice and get out of here, I need to put the monsters to bed.”

Crusher’s eyes lighted on Sam, and for a second the crazy in his eyes flared bright enough that Sam could almost swear they  _glowed_.

“Pretty Freak,” he said.

“Rosenstein! ” Lonny snapped. “No one will go for that. Not after what Karl got…”

“Easy, Fitzpatrick, not gonna do a damn thing he doesn’t ask for. Let’s see, aaaand…” He reached down and grabbed the collar of a skinwalker woman who was still fairly pretty, even with claw scars down her face. He snapped one of the heavy-duty lead lines, one that kept a stiff pole between the guard and his victim, to her collar. “I’ll take this pretty bitch, too. Now, I need a volunteer!”

The monsters shifted uneasily, not sure if that was a joke or a test. Or an offer.

“Come on, no takers? I’ll throw in a blanket and a sandwich, and all you have to do is fuck this bitch.”

A vampire shook off his blankets and stood. “ _Mrrd?_ ” he asked, the muzzle almost completely obscuring the word.

Crusher put a hand to his ear. “What was that? Speak up, Toothy.”

The vamp almost growled, remembered himself in time. Talking back at a guard had gotten him a broken jaw and a permanent set of overfangs. Instead he mimed shoving a needle into his arm.

“Blood? Sure, I’ll throw in a whole pint. You might even get to take it out of her vein.”

The vamp nodded and joined Sam, the skinwalker, and Crusher by the door.

They left the barracks, the woman on the stiff line, Sam on a short, looser leash attached to Crusher's belt, and Crusher brought them to a huge room in Administration that looked more like an indoor exercise yard than an interrogation room. Sam only knew what it was by the restraint bolts in the walls, the cameras in the corners, and the shadow of old bloodstains on the floor.

Other guards were already in the room, out of uniform and more relaxed than Sam had ever seen them, except for the second or two after they had come. Most wore jeans and T-shirts, older clothes no one would mind getting dirty. Someone had even brought some second-hand furniture—Sam recognized the couch from the breaking room—so the men could sit down and sprawl comfortably.

They were all still armed.

Crusher let Victor snap the vampire onto a chain connected to one wall. It was just long enough that he couldn’t get to the guards’ seats. The chain Crusher hooked to the woman’s collar was considerably shorter. Wherever she tried to run, the vamp would be able to reach her. Following on his short lead, only Sam was close enough to hear what Crusher whispered in her ear while he secured her chain.

“You bring him down before he comes, and you walk out of here with all the goodies, pretty bitch.”

She had been in Freak Camp for a while - maybe a year, Sam thought he remembered seeing her last winter too - so she wasn't shaking or blubbering pointlessly yet, but from the vacant look she gave Crusher, Sam couldn't tell if she had understood or not. 

Crusher stepped back, pulling Sam by the leash. “Remember, you have to spray your freak jizz inside her, vamp, or it doesn’t count. Let the show begin.”

Instead of taking a seat and securing Sam somewhere in the back, Crusher gripped both of Sam’s arms behind his back and pulled him against his chest while he leaned against the wall. “Watch,” he breathed in Sam’s hair, his boner nudging against Sam’s ass, while the vamp stalked almost leisurely toward the skinwalker. “Watch so you can learn how it’s done.”

Sam swallowed and looked up from the floor just as the vampire seized the skinwalker's chain and hauled her within reach.

Hard to tell what Crusher wanted him to learn. Sam had seen rape before, and this sex wasn’t even something all the guards would enjoy. It was half-sex, half-battle, with the woman doing her best to claw the vamp’s eyes out, and the vamp slowly gaining ground, pinning her to the floor and pushing down both their pants. He didn’t completely manage to block her from tearing ribbons of skin off his face, and she was finally sobbing, gasping and kicking as he slid over her, pinning her arms over her head.

Even though it wasn’t something they would want to do themselves—no real would let a monster be that free to fight while getting fucked—most of the guards seemed to be enjoying the show. Davey looked a little sick, keeping his attention locked on a corner of the room, but Maxwell was jerking himself hard and panting, a dirty grin on his face, cock already tight and ready to burst.

About half of the rest already had their cocks out as well, but no one else was nearly as close as Maxwell. Bernard—hand down his pants—gave a little jerk every time a sob broke the woman’s lips, and Victor looked almost thoughtful, one hand resting on the bulge in his jeans.

Sam swallowed and looked down when Crusher started moving against him, his hips grinding harder against Sam’s body each time the monster on the floor managed to thrust into his writhing, screaming victim.

Crusher jerked his arms up, and Sam gasped involuntarily. “Watch, little whore,” Crushed twisting his arms higher. “Or I’ll break your arms.”

And because Sam looked, Crusher grunting against him, he saw the end.

The woman, apparently defeated, had moved her legs up to wrap around the vampire's waist and was writhing with his moments. But between one second and the next, her terrified expression settled into one deadly and determined. She lifted her legs to lock her ankles and  _squeezed_ her thighs together, hard.

If he had been human, she probably would have crushed his ribcage, cutting off the vamp’s air at the very least, but even as a vampire he was distracted enough to let her hands go. She took the opportunity to get her long, bloody fingers wrapped around his neck and  _twist_.

After the sharp pop, there was a long moment of silence. Then the skinwalker pushed the vamp off her, pulled up her pants, and stood, shakily. She was breathing hard with one hand on the wall, her eyes on the watching guards. 

She looked at Crusher, half-defiant, half-terrified, while the other guards went for their guns. “You said—“ she stopped to cough, spit blood out of her mouth where she had bitten through her lip in the struggle. “You said if I brought him down, I walked out. No questions asked.”

“Fuck, Elmer,” Victor said. “Sonuvabitch.”

Crusher nodded at Maxwell, who was scowling and still painfully hard. “Max asked me to. You like the show, right Max?”

Maxwell never took his eyes off the skinwalker. “I thought it would fucking last longer, though.”

Bernard grinned, hand still down his pants. “You should transfer to IC, Max. I’ve told you what we do to keep the dogs awake. Lasts as long as you want it to.”

“Rosenstein,” Max said. “I don’t fuck guys. Convince her.”

Crusher pushed Sam to the side and moved to where the skinwalker was shaking, and Victor raised an eyebrow at Max. “You still want to fuck a woman who can break your neck before you get off?"

Maxwell shrugged. “So we hold her down.”

The woman watched Crusher approach, eyes wide, hand curling into fists. “You promised,” she said. She didn’t believe that would make a difference, but she had to say it.

“I did,” Crusher said. “And you can walk out here right now, with a fat little sandwich.” He leaned forward and slid his hand over her shoulders. “But if you spread and lie quiet while the boys fuck you tonight, then I won’t find you tomorrow, like I was planning.” His hand drifted down to her chest and twisted one nipple, hard. “Now, you going to be a good little bitch tonight, or will I have to teach you…tomorrow?”

She stared at him, chest rising and falling under his hand. “Tonight,” she said.

“Say it again, bitch. Make sure Max can hear you.”

She cleared her throat. “I’ll be a good bitch tonight,” she said, and the other guards looked over. Max smiled and started sliding his hand along his cock again.

Crusher nodded. “And we’ll all keep off you tomorrow.” He turned her around and pushed her with enough force toward Max that she only stopped when the chain choked her down.

Max stood. “Hold her for me, boys. Just want her busting my nut, not my neck.” 

Crusher turned back to Sam and shoved his back against the wall, hard. “You heard the deal I gave her, right, Pretty Freak?” he said, sliding his knee between Sam’s legs and  _pressing_. “You know I can hurt you and it won’t leave scars?”

Sam knew. He knew that very well. “What’s my deal? One sandwich, not enough.” He couldn’t believe that he’d said that. He wasn’t sure what would push Crusher over the edge, but he had to push, because he could hear the noises that the skinwallker was making under Max, he could hear the sounds from the vampire as the more indiscriminate guards turned him over, and he didn’t want that.

Crusher slapped him. “Not enough, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Crusher eased back. “This is voluntary, remember, freak? You’re going to hit your knees because you like it, because you want it. You’re going to say that you want it, every time, because you do, you little whore. And for every load you swallow, I’ll get you a sandwich. Not right away, but over this week. Every day, a sandwich, until you run out of our come. Just say yes, Pretty Freak.”

That was a good deal. A fucking good deal. And Sam wanted to run like hell.

But that wasn’t an option.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I want it, sir.”

Crusher smiled, and Sam wondered if he’d be first. Crusher was usually first. But instead he turned him around. “Good whore,” he said. “Bernie’s waiting for you on the couch. Go use that mouth of yours.” Then he gave him a shove.

Sam walked to where Bernard was waiting, smiling, his dick out.

“You want this, Pretty Freak?” he said. “You want me down your throat, you want to choke on me?”

Sam knelt. “Yes, sir, I want it.”

Bernard grabbed his head. “Then take it.”

~*~

 _Four_ , Sam thought as Pete finished, pumping into his mouth and gasping above him. Sam swallowed, forcing himself to swallow even though his jaw ached, he felt sick, his stomach full, full of  _them_. Some of the guards—Davey, Maxwell—preferred handjobs or women, or just to jerk themselves off, but he had done four and had at least two more to do. Crusher had only gone once, and there was someone else, Sam didn’t remember, it was hard to keep track, why the fuck should he keep track of whose dick it was when all he needed to remember was that he had done four. Four days he wouldn't have to worry about hunger cramps affecting his concentration, of what might happen if he passed out during roll call. Unless Crusher took that away. Which he could - what could Sam do if he decided to back out of the deal?

The dick popped out of his mouth, and Sam gasped, fighting the need to vomit. Pete grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up to his feet— Sam's knees twinged, he hadn’t stood up since he’d gone down for Bernard—and slid a hand to the waistband of his pants.

“Fucking sweet mouth,” he breathed into Sam’s face, and Sam could smell the alcohol on his breath. Could feel the guard’s fingers closing on his pants and tugging them down. “Bet your ass is just as hot.”

 _No, no, no_ , Sam thought, but his voice wouldn’t work, his jaw wouldn’t close. Sam fought, clawing at the guard’s hands, at his pants, and Pete just laughed. Around him, the other guards watched, fucked-out and buzzed. Crusher’s pupils were wide and his breathing uneven. Pete was a fairly new guard, but he had jumped in on the guards' extracurriculars with speed and enthusiasm. His first protests of  _hell no, I'm not a fucking fag_  had been forgotten once Crusher showed him how it felt to fuck a tight ass, ride a monster's mouth.  _Pretty Freak sucks cock better than any of the females. There used to be one who was pretty good_ , Crusher had said, holding Sam's head in place,  _but they pulled her to SR a couple weeks ago. Too bad you missed her._  Pete hadn't turned down an opportunity to fuck Sam's mouth since.

“Bet Winchester won’t mind if I break you in,” he panted, getting Sam’s pants below his hips. “Bet he’d thank me for making it easier for him, teaching you how to take a fat cock up your ass.”

At that threat, he found the strength to move his jaw and lips. “Bet he wouldn’t,” Sam returned, the words rasping through his abused throat. “Bet he’d fuck you with your own club for it.”

The silence that followed was sharp enough to break, and in it Sam heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing.

Then a fist slammed into his stomach and he dropped, vomiting come and stomach acid over the guard’s shoes.

He got kicked a couple times and curled into a ball to protect his face—would have curled the other way, not like his face was important—but what he expected, the hands on his pants, dragging him to a surface to get fucked, didn’t happen. Instead Pete dragged him up again and threw him at Crusher.

“Get the little fuck out of sight.” If Sam hadn’t known better, he would have thought the guard almost sounded scared.

“Don’t have the balls for it now, do you, Pete?” Victor said, while the skinwalker took his dick into her mouth.

“Shut up, Todd,” Pete snapped. “I don’t see you fucking Winchester’s property.”

“That’s because I’m not—yeah, right there, slut, harder, down your throat, wanna feel you choking—a fucking idiot.”

Crusher dragged him to the door of the huge interrogation room, pulled his pants back up over his hips, and then hauled him the rest of the way out of Administration.

“Dirty whore like you doesn’t even have the right to  _think_ Winchester’s name, you got that, slut?” Crusher said, pinning him once more to the wall. “You talk shit like that again, and next time Winchester’s here I’ll tell him about your fucking uppity mouth and let  _him_ deal with it, got that?”

“Yes, sir.” But he hadn’t been fucked. Sam held onto that, because, even though Dean would have the right to beat him bloody for using his name like that, it had  _worked_ and he was still there, still clean for Dean in the only way he could possibly matter. So he was going to push, while it still felt like the guards couldn’t touch him, when they seemed to have remembered the first couple weeks after Dean had disappeared and wouldn’t touch him again. “What about my sandwiches, sir?”

Crusher looked at him. “You’re lucky I don’t break your skull, freak. But we’ll see. Now get back to your fucking barracks.”

Sam swallowed. That, too, was better than he had hoped for. “Yes, sir,” he said, and turned to limp through the dark, cool camp, hoping no one would be around the water spigot on the side of the barracks, where he could ease his burning throat and drink enough to vomit again.

~*~

The second Dean stepped into the dark, smoky bar, his well-trained eye identified the biggest threat in the room, which was a table of chicks way too hot to be drinking vodka martinis alone. He sauntered over to rectify the situation, leaning companionably on their table. Since he turned nineteen, he had honed a perfect combination of confidence and charm that almost always got him laid.

This batch, unnaturally, wasn't biting. They liked when he flashed his credit card for the next round, but when he notched up the flirting, they all claimed to have boyfriends. He figured at least a couple were telling the truth, but before he could identify the liars in the bunch—maybe the bleach-blonde with the boob job would give him the inside scoop—their ringleader stood and announced it was time to go.

Watching his marks stroll out the door—every other girl in the place was either clearly with someone, or clearly not his type—Dean saw a few glance back at him regretfully. The bleach-blonde held her hand up to her ear and mouthed  _Call me_ , but she hadn't given her number.

"Strike out, Winchester," Dean muttered to himself, and turned to the pool tables. The girls may not have panned out—and had cost him twenty imaginary dollars on the fake credit card—but the night need not be a complete loss.

Parting losers from their money took an unexpected upswing two games and fifty bucks in the green later, when a fit guy in a tight shirt with dark hair, an easy grin, and wandering eyes stepped up. "You're pretty good, hot stuff," he said. "Think you can handle my game?"

Dean grinned. He heard another promise beneath the words, but he wasn't going to bite yet. Some parts of the country, guys could get bent out of shape. Better to be sure. "I'm game," he said. 

Halfway through the game, the guy propped his hip against the table. "I like how you handle your cue," he said. "Oh, and I'm Zach, by the way." He grinned. "Always good to get the formalities out of the way before the game gets too far."

Zach wasn't bad, certainly better than the other marks he'd played that night, but Dean got the feeling the guy was distracted, concentrating on something other than getting the balls into the right holes. Pretty soon Dean was having a harder time sinking the shots himself, distracted more and more by the way Zach slowly rolled his pool cue from hand to hand, hooked his forefinger around the tip and stroked down. No accident, or a distraction ploy either, Dean was sure. The way Zach kept meeting his eyes, it was pretty clear he wanted more than a round at the table.

Dean Winchester wasn't a man to limit himself, whether that was with food, drink, speed, monster hunting, or getting laid. If there was a pretty face—and a willing body below it—well, he was game.

Granted, both genders had their advantages. He liked the game with girls, the cover stories he created and they pretended to believe. He liked watching them melt, and sliding inside so easily when they were wet for him, but sometimes it was nice to cut the chase and pretense. With guys around a pool table, the cue sticks could do all the talking, the occasional brush of a hip—as Zach leaned closer pretending to see how Dean was 'lining up a shot'—making an offer that Dean just had to reach out for. No backstory or attachments required, just the assurance he would find a libido and enthusiasm that would match his own better than almost any girl's. Right then, Dean decided this could be a great night after all.

He deliberately scratched a shot to even the score a bit, though Zach was clearly more preoccupied with Dean than the game at this point. As soon as Dean sank his winning shot, Zach flashed another smile as he held up the ten bucks he'd lost. Dean took it slowly, his fingers sliding over Zach's.

"Hey, no hard feelings. I'll buy you a beer," Dean held up the ten. "Think of it as buying me a drink."

Zach grinned, leaning against the table and placing his hands not-so-subtly on his thighs, fingers directed inward. "I have a better idea than that. Save your cash and come back to my place for a drink."

Dean thought for maybe a second. It was always a little tricky deciding if he wanted to take the next step. At moments like this, with a pretty face staring at him, his father's warnings— _monsters wear the face that gets them closest, Dean_ —rattled through his head. And when a dude propositioned, he was never sure what entering the other guy's territory entailed. A couple times it turned nasty, once ending with the other guy down and bleeding. 

But Zach didn't ring any warnings—just a horny civilian—and Dean hadn't had so many drinks that he worried about his reaction if the guy pulled out vamp teeth. 

So he grinned and stepped a little closer to Zach, so he could look down into his eyes. "Separate cars," he said. "I'll follow your lead. Unless you do something I don't like."

Zach seemed pretty pleased with that answer. As soon as they stepped outside the bar, he grabbed the front of Dean's shirt, pushing him out of the porch light and against the rough wall for a rough kiss. It was practically an assault, his tongue fucking into Dean's mouth with an aggressiveness that assured him of everything yet to come. Dean never submitted to a challenge like that, and he pushed back as he twisted Zach around so he was the one against the wall. When they broke apart, Zach was grinning wide, and he reached around to grip Dean's ass.

"Oh yeah," he breathed. "I knew I found a stud."

Zach's apartment wasn't far, and Dean was still half-hard by the time he pulled up beside Zach's Ford truck. They kissed again outside the gate, and Dean got his turn groping ass as Zach struggled to get the key in his door.

"Just so you know," Zach huffed, "Jake might still be here -"

Dean was about to ask who the hell that was, but Zach had the door open and was pulling Dean inside, and the only question left was which way to the bedroom.

But they halted before the kitchen, spotting someone bent in front of the fridge. He turned to face them with a beer in hand, and Dean abruptly felt like he'd been whaled with a sandbag.

The boy, maybe a year or two younger than them, was tall and incredibly lanky, long tanned limbs running from his T-shirt sleeves and shorts. His floppy, sandy-brown hair hung almost over his blue eyes, but even his  _face_ -

If Sam got three meals a day and decent exercise - if he were a  _real_ \- this was exactly how he would look in a couple years.

Then the boy smiled, slow and direct, right at Dean, eyes raking over his body without the thinnest pretense. "Hey there." He leaned against the counter as he popped open the bottle. "Where'd you wander in from?"

Zach pressed in close, hand on Dean's back. "Uh-uh, babe, I found him first."

Dean managed an awkward huff of a laugh, glancing at him. "What, are you guys - together?"

Zach's eyes glinted in amusement. "Nah, not really. More like roommates with benefits."

"Sounds fun," Dean said, eyes drawn back to Jake.

Zach got his attention again by nipping Dean's neck with his teeth and pushing him once again toward the bedroom. "This way, pretty boy."

Dean almost objected to the nickname - used too often in undesirable situations with older men - but Zach barely paused to push the door closed before tearing Dean's jeans and boxers down, and Dean decided there wouldn't be much more talking anyway. Zach rolled a rubber down his prick in record time, and Dean barely managed to fall back into a padded chair behind him before Zach swallowed him down all at once. Dean's brain instantly short-circuited. He bucked up, groaning and swearing at the top of his voice, and barely managed to pull himself together so he didn't come within five seconds. Zach could have been a porn star, the way he squeezed Dean's balls in exactly the right counter-rhythm with his bobs, and when he did finish a few minutes later, Dean felt he could hardly be blamed.

Zach propped his arms on Dean's thighs, grinning with swollen wet lips. "Like that?"

"Holy shit," Dean said weakly. 

Smirking, Zach tugged the condom off, rolling it up neatly before tossing it in the trash and sliding over a tissue box to wipe him down. Dean hissed at the sensation on his sensitive skin, and he reached forward to grab Zach's shoulders. "Hang on," he muttered, "just give me a minute, and I'm going to fucking blow  _your_ brains out."

"I'm counting on it." Zach shimmied out of his jeans, and Dean managed to catch him off guard, knocking him back onto the bed. Zach might have been a porn star, but Dean had a few tricks of his own. He pushed the condom down with his mouth, including liberal use of tongue, as he pinned Zach's wrists to the bed. Then he just  _held_ him there, nose almost brushing his pubic hair as he refused to budge or let him thrust up, until Zach was writhing and begging mindlessly. Then Dean focused on the head, flicking his tongue over and around and finally nudging the slit, even through the rubber. Zach came about as fast as he had, Dean decided, pleased.

Afterwards, he rolled up next to him on the bed, still feeling the last ebb of his own post-orgasm glow. They caught their breaths as Dean finally noticed, with appreciation, the posters of sexy boys in assless chaps and other skimpy cowboy outfits on the walls and ceiling. 

Zach interrupted his reverie by nudging him in the shoulder. "You ready to bring Jake in?"

Dean's head snapped around so fast he heard a pop, but he was busy staring incredulously at Zach. "Dude. Are you serious?"

Zach raised his eyebrows. "Why would I be bullshitting you? I told you, we're not the possessive type. And I saw how you two were eying each other."

Dean almost choked. "I wasn't -"

"Dude. You totally were. And trust me, Jake was lit up like a Christmas tree for you at first glance." He jerked his head towards the door, and Dean belatedly realized it had never closed all the way but left several inches ajar. "What do you want to bet he's right outside, jerking off as he listened to you moan? I'd win back my pool money." He smirked before rising up to one elbow, calling, "Weren't you, baby boy?"

The door slowly swung in, revealing Jake leaning against the doorframe. His cheeks were flushed, but he was doing nothing to hide the tent in his khaki shorts. He looked directly at Dean and wet his lips. "Didn't get off yet." His voice was both soft and husky. "Was hoping you'd touch me."

And just like that, Dean was breathless and up again. Propping himself up on his elbows, he stared as Jake came toward him, dropping his shirt and shorts on the way, until Jake climbed up naked over him. Dean couldn't take his eyes off Jake's swaying cock, pointing straight at him and dipping just a few inches above his own curved dick. Jake tugged Dean's shirt up, over his head, and spread his hands over his chest. "You're so hot," he breathed, and lowered his head to take Dean's nipple between his teeth.

Dean thrust up hard, groaning through his clenched teeth, and he couldn't keep his hands off Jake any longer, didn't know why he had so far. Grabbing his hips, Dean pulled him down to grind their cocks together. Jake whimpered, long fingers clutching at Dean's biceps as he moved his mouth over Dean's chest, up his neck and to his mouth. His kisses were entirely unlike Zach's: slow, exploratory, lingering like he could do this all night. Dean struggled to pull down his pace to match, even as his hand slid from Jake's hip, running over his back before gliding, lightly, over the curve of his ass.

"Fucking hell," Zach breathed, and Dean was just barely aware of him sitting at the head of the bed, watching them and moving his fist over his own dick. "You two are so fucking hot."

Jake whimpered again, tantalizingly, and Dean drove his hips up again in frantic need. Fuck, he hadn't been this wild, this out of control since the first time he'd felt the warm heat of a pussy around his cock. That same trembling all through his muscles told him he would have no control over when he lost it. Pushing his fingers hard through Jake's shaggy hair, he groaned and tugged back Jake's head hard to reach his neck with his teeth.

Keening, Jake struggled for balance, pulling up his knees to relieve the pressure between their cocks, which was  _not_ acceptable. Dean reached to take hold of Jake's hip and make that point clear, but then he felt Jake's fingers sliding down his prick, over his balls, and reaching  _farther_ \- oh, fuck -

Dean released Jake's throat, gasping and shuddering and lifting his hips so Jake's fingertips could better nudge against his hole.

"Wanna fuck you," Jake whispered, head dropped so his mouth was against Dean's ear. "Want you to fuck  _me_ -"

Dean came, spurting hard over his own stomach and Jake's, vision blacking out for several long seconds until his muscles stopped spasming. Coming back to himself, he realized Jake was still panting above him as he jerked himself. "Oh God, oh God -" 

Dean reached with both hands to squeeze Jake's ass cheeks, spreading them wide apart as he whispered for him to come, come for him now -

Jake did, crying out again - kid was so fucking vocal, made the sexiest noises - as he dropped down on top of him. Dean could feel his cock pulsing against his stomach, their semen mixing together, and he sighed contentedly, resting his hand on Jake's warm back. It felt exactly right, his weight and limbs splayed over Dean, long hair tickling his face. His brain wasn't back on board yet, fucked out of his mind, but he already knew bone-deep that this one time wouldn't be enough.

Jake shifted, lifting his shoulders to prop himself up and smile down at Dean. "So. Who's Sammy?"

The heady warmth suffusing him took an abrupt plunge, leaving him cold and clammy and a sick coil in his stomach. Without thinking, he pushed Jake off to the side, ignoring the sticky slide as their bellies parted.

"Hey!" Jake protested, reaching for him, but Dean sat up, grabbing an edge of the blanket to wipe himself off and immediately hunting for his clothes.

"Awww, c'mon," Jake whined. "Forget I said anything. We just barely got started, I didn't even get to taste your dick."

Dean shoved the thought aside hard, refusing to think about how Jake's head would look bobbing on him. Yanking up his boxers and jeans together, he glanced at both of them. "Trust me, this is not my usual policy, but I gotta head back. Nothing personal."

"Seriously lame," Zach informed him. Dean noticed, distractedly, he had come again at some point, and his dick rested flaccidly now on his thigh. "We aren't chicks, but you can't just take off like that."

"Call me a douche if it makes you feel better." Dean patted his pockets for keys and wallet. "You two will be fine without me, I'm sure."

Jake didn't argue again, but Dean caught sight of the glower and pouty lip, and hastily looked away again. 

Zach sighed. "Man, I was totally going to get your number to do this again, but if you're gonna be such a pussy - whatever." He waved his hand. "Go deal with your issues, go find your  _Sammy_."

The queasiness hit Dean's stomach again, and he swallowed before grabbing his jacket from the floor. "Seriously, I know it's a bitch move. I just - I gotta go." He ducked out of the room before either of them could say another word.

He didn't stop until he was in his Impala, where he rested his forehead on the wheel and began swearing in a low continuous rush under his breath. 

Dean had done a lot of kinky shit in bed and even more out of it. He hadn't minded, when picking up the best chick available, fantasizing about his last truly hot fuck as he pounded her. He hadn't even had much yammering from his conscience when he screwed the perky cheerleader who was almost definitely not the sixteen she swore she was. But he had never felt so much like a dirty pervert as he did tonight.

He knew why he should feel that way, what anyone else would tell him if they knew - that he should be ashamed for getting off on a monster like that. But Dean couldn't even kid himself about that. Sam hadn't been a monster to him in years.

What Sam felt like instead was just a  _kid_ \- like if he had been a real kid, not yet fifteen, definitely  _not_ someone Dean should be thinking about like that. He and Sam were... As always, his brain came up short. "Friends" never seemed right, and from the start he had never been allowed to think of them that way. Whatever it was, he  _cared_ about Sam, cared what happened to him, and he had made that abundantly clear to everyone several months ago. He had shown then he wasn't ashamed; he had essentially claimed Sam for his own that day, and it made him feel steady and assured, like this was  _right_ and the way it should be, when he saw everyone else acknowledging it. 

But dammit, he had not meant it in a sexual way. He wasn't the same as those filthy bastards who thought that way and made those constant dirty jokes. He wasn't going to touch Sam, ever.

Unless Sam wanted it.

He bit his lip at the thought, grinding his palms down hard on his knees in denial of the twitch his twice-spent dick had just given. No, no,  _dirtyandwrong_ , he wasn't going to think that way about a poor kid who'd grown up in that hell of a camp and clearly never had enough to eat, who probably would never have the slightest bit of interest in Dean that way. Why would he want a hunter?

It was a fucking sick fantasy and Dean was not going to lower himself by giving into it.

He would not.


	10. Chapter 10

Freak Camp made Bobby's skin crawl. He didn't visit unless he couldn't avoid it, like now, when a captured demon might have intel on a case he had been working on for the last six months.

He tried never to linger - he'd go in, see what he could get, leave without glancing in the observation windows to see what was drawing out  _that_ particular human-sounding scream.

He finished working over the demon - always straightforward, as long as you had a hefty supply of salt, water, and a crucifix - and though he didn't damage the host hardly at all, the smell of burning skin was never a happy one. He had just stepped out of the room, thinking only of the shower he would take as soon as he got out—he didn't like using the showers that the facility provided; they might get the stink of interrogation out from under his fingernails, but he'd just have to shower again later to get the smell of Freak Camp off his skin—when a door opened further down the hall and Dennis Beam stepped out.

"Singer! I didn't know you were in the area."

Bobby took his hand in a quick shake. He'd only run across the man on a couple hunts, but Beam had been full of admiration for Bobby's knowledge. "Only got here this morning, and I'm leaving tonight back to Sioux Falls."

"Well, before you go, let me show you a tool I picked up, great for taking down the freaks with softer nervous systems. Think of it as a thank you for telling me about those iron rounds." He held up a thin, gleaming black cattle prod and grinned wide. "Come check it out." He held open the door, and Bobby reluctantly stepped inside.

Bobby's stomach turned over at the scene he found himself part of. Sam - he could still recognize the monster Dean had pointed out last time they were here in what had become a painfully thin, probably not yet fifteen-year-old teenager - lay on the floor, his hair and shirt soaked with sweat, wrists bound in front of his chest with plastic handcuffs, and two chains stretching from either side of his collar to hooks set low in opposite walls. There was barely enough slack in the chains for him to rise up on his elbows, though he wouldn't be able to do even that with the handcuffs. His glassy eyes didn't move from staring at the ceiling as Bobby came in.

"Look how good this works." Beam stabbed the prod toward Sam's chest, pulling back several inches before it touched him, but Sam's body spasmed violently in anticipation. Beam and the guard - Elmer, known as "Crusher" - roared with laughter. Panting, Sam turned his face toward the wall, though there was no emotion to read in his expression.

"You sick fucks," Bobby muttered. "What did he do?"

Beam looked at him, surprised. "C'mon, Singer, it's a freak. Never knew you were such a softie."

Out of the kid's line of sight, Elmer nudged Sam's thigh with his own prod. A guttural cry ripped from Sam's throat as his body seized, jerking for several moments before falling still again, facing the opposite direction. He choked and gasped for breath, and Bobby realized his collar had half-strangled him. His chest rose and fell so rapidly he looked ready to have a heart attack. But most disconcerting of all was how—even as limbs still twitched—Sam's face had smoothed over again to utter blankness.

"You're a sadistic bastard," Bobby said. He couldn't keep his eyes off the kid on the floor, didn't know when his right hand had crept to where his gun usually was. He forced himself to move his hand away. "What the hell did he do? Whatever it is, he can't possibly deserve  _this_."

"I don't know." Beam glanced at Elmer. "What did he do?"

Elmer shrugged and stepped between the monster's legs. "Getting careless with his teeth," he said.

A shudder worked down Sam's shoulders, but he made no attempt to close his legs, even as Elmer lifted his boot and slowly pressed down on his groin. Sam keened, the sound slipping high and agonized from between his clenched teeth.

"Awww, what are you whining about," Elmer cooed. "Monsters don't need these, do they, Pre—"

"I'm having a hard time telling who the monster is!" Bobby snapped.

Sam's eyes snapped open, and he looked at Bobby - the first thing he had focused on in the room. Bobby saw in his eyes no gratitude, pleading, or hatred - just a curious intentness as he  _looked_ at him. Bobby swallowed, unable to look away himself.

"What did you say?" Beam said, face twisting ugly as he took a step forward - though still out of reach.

Bobby raised his eyes and glared back. "You heard me. Bunch of tough guys, going after a malnourished kid with his hands tied. That how you get your rocks off?"

"Well," Beam said, much cooler, "if you're not enjoying yourself, Singer, you don't have to stay."

Bobby glanced back at Sam, but the kid's eyes had gone to the ceiling again, lost and flat. Bobby swallowed, fists clenching, bile sliding up his throat, then glared at Beam. "Lose my number," he snarled. "I don't want to hear from you again, I don't care what you need." He slammed the door behind him.

He swore viciously under his breath with every step out of the complex, barely pausing to sign out and nod at the ever-so-sweet receptionist girl who bade him goodbye by name. As the FREACS visitor's door swung shut behind him, he was dialing his cell phone.

"Hey, Bobby, what's up?" Dean sounded cheerful, oblivious, and it only increased the sick roiling in his stomach.

"Dean," he growled. "You still interested in getting that Sam kid out of the camp?"

"Wh—yeah, of course I am."

"Well, you better start filing the paperwork. I don't think he'll make it another year."

 _"What?"_ Dean sounded like he had just been punched in the gut. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said." Bobby hung up, seething too much to trust himself to keep talking. It was stupid on every level, he knew, to get emotional over a monster in Freak Camp. Couldn't end well. 

But he wasn't able to just walk out on two sadists torturing a kid and not do a damn thing about it. 

~*~

Dean stared down at the phone. That was…not what he had expected when he had seen that the call was from Bobby.

The phone was new. It still felt like a reward when someone called him, even though Dad mostly didn’t—unless they had to get together—and not many other people had his number. When Bobby called, it was usually to point them in the direction of a new hunt, or sometimes just to say hi. Dean thought of it as "checking up on him," but that didn't mean it didn't feel good to get the call.

He turned to where Dad watched him with a frown on his face. It was one of their rare weeks together, when both of their respective hunts were over—or a different hunt had brought them back together—and Dad sat on the second bed in the hotel room cleaning his guns, getting polish all over the cheap, ratty bedspread.

“That was short,” he said. “Singer in trouble?” His tone implied that Bobby could go fuck himself, but his hands, hesitating over the weapon he was cleaning, said that if Dean said the word they would be gone.

Dean liked that, how Dad trusted him sometimes, would pay attention when he brought him new information. Not that Dean ever knew anything that Dad didn’t. Dad was still the best, and Dean loved working with him, not just because they were family, but because if John and Dean Winchester went after something, that sucker was going down. It was just a fact of life. Together, the Winchesters could stop anything. 

Usually, he liked that more. But then again, usually Bobby had not just told him that he had to get Sam out,  _get Sam out now_ , in a tone that Dean had only ever heard before when he was telling some civilian to _get the fuck down, it’s going for your heart._

Dean took a shaky breath, and then reached for his own guns. “Bobby’s fine, I think,” he said. “You know how to get a monster out of Freak Camp?”

John Winchester froze and looked up from his gun. “Why would I know a fucking thing like that?”

 _Because you’re my dad and you know everything._ “I’m getting Sam out,” Dean said. “Figured I would ask you first because you usually know these things, but I can call Madison, or the ASC hotline, and they can…”

John put the gun down, carefully pushing the clip farther away from the weapon itself. “Dean, I thought you were over this.”

Dean’s mind had been spinning, trying to lock onto something, to find a starting place to actually deal with the problem of getting Sam out. There was always a starting point in research, from which the details of the monster and how to kill it would just start falling into place. Even if this was so much bigger than pulling confirmation of a werewolf attack out of a list of fatal animal attacks, or pinning a string of strange deaths on a shapeshifter. _At last, at last, you’re going to do it, you’re going to keep your promise and stop putting it off like a coward_ \- but he came back to the here-and-now at Dad’s tone.

“Sir?”

“I thought you had stopped obsessing over that monster.”

Dean blinked and considered. He still thought about Sam. He still thought about him all the time. He still…but no, he hadn’t talked about him in a while, not to Dad. Not since the fight at Freak Camp, and the eight week suspension.

He and Dad had had an hour shouting match about appropriate behavior with other hunters and ASC personnel. Somehow the point John had boiled down to had been that everyone ass-kissing the ASC really deserved a brand in their faces anyway, just for being Big Brother assholes, but Dean was still stupid and impulsive to do it. Dad hadn’t connected that fight with Sam, and since then Dean had stopped mentioning Sam, because Sam was his, and talking about him just made Dad angry.

Actually, he hadn’t talked about Sam much since he turned sixteen. Because everything he had wanted to say about him to John, he had said, even though the man hadn’t heard a word.

“Sir, I wouldn’t say obsessed.”  _Unless you mean I think about him every day. And I smile when I see M &M’s because he loves those, and I think about reading all these books just so I can share them with him. And my heart jumps every time I see thin, pretty boys who look like him._

“Yeah, what would you call it then?” John glanced at him for a second before turning his head away. “I can barely hold my head up in a hunter bar with sonsofbitches cracking jokes about you mooning after that monster kid. Everyone knows, Dean, and you’re not ten anymore.”

Dean was pretty sure that if he were still ten, the thoughts he had about Sam would be considerably different.

“No, sir, I’m not ten,” Dean said slowly. “And I think that means that if I say something like this, it means that I know what I’m doing. Or at least that I’ve thought it through.”

Dad snorted. “You let me be the judge of that, Dean.”

The worst thing was that Dean would be perfectly happy letting Dad be the judge of things. When they hunted together—not all the time, but still often enough—Dean let Dad take the lead, ask the questions, form the ideas, send him out to do research or flirt with a pretty girl or boy. Dad always knew what to do, the next step they should take. It didn’t make Dean angry, didn’t rattle him when Dad barked off orders without listening to his input. Dean had a lifetime of knowing that when Dad said to drop he should drop, when Dad said to run he should run, and at this point it didn’t really faze him when Dad told him to do something, because he trusted him.

He trusted him about everything but Sam. Because on nights when Dad had been gone, or too drunk to drive, or unconscious and bleeding, Sam had always been there in Dean's thoughts. He had never been able to fully explain, even to himself, even the night he turned sixteen, what Sam meant to him and why Dean knew he wasn't just another monster. They might have only spent a couple hours together at a time over the years, but Dean was sure about Sam like he was about precious little else in his life. He saw the same expression on Sam's face every time they saw each other, and he saw how Sam smiled at him—whenever Dean managed to coax one out. There was nothing else like it in his life. And while he couldn't put into words what Sam meant to him, Dean knew with absolute certainty what he meant to Sam, and that rescuing Sam from Freak Camp mattered more than any of the civilians he had managed to save.

Sam was his friend. Sam cared without demanding things from him—even though Dean would be willing to give him anything, anything at all—and Sam was not a monster.

“You never ask me what I’ve thought," Dean said slowly, "so how can you know when I’ve thought something through?”

Dad paused and looked up at him with something strange in his eyes. “What did you just say to me?”

“I said that you don’t listen,” Dean said. “I said that I  _have_ thought this through.”

“This being…?”

“I’m getting Sam out,” Dean said. The words echoed strangely in the room, as though the space had gotten suddenly bigger. “And you can help me, sir, or you can get the hell out of my way.”

John stared, and then carefully put his gun on the bed. “You’re getting a monster out of Freak Camp,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling well? Any dizziness or disorientation, any details not feeling right? Any hesitation at all in making these decisions?”

It made Dean angry that Dad was  _still_ convinced that this could be some kind of monster trick. He thought that if Sam had the ability to twist his head around— _in some fast, supernatural way, and not just with his smile_ —then he would have applied all the pressure he could to get out of that shithole earlier, maybe back when they were burning smiley faces into his arm. “Yes, Dad, I feel fine,” he snapped. “It’s not like this is a new idea.”

“Are you telling me that you have been planning to remove a monster from Freak Camp longer than just tonight?”

 _Just the last six years, Dad._ “Yes.”

“What—“ John’s voice broke, but Dean couldn’t tell if it was from anger or worry or fear. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What exactly would you do with the freak, if you get him out?”

“Do?”  _Feed him, for one._ Sam looked thinner every time he visited. Dean wasn’t sure how he supported the growth spurts that happened just as often.  _Kiss him, if he’ll let me._

“Yes. Do. Do! You can’t just want to have a  _monster_ with you." John sounded disgusted, confused, almost desperate, like he was trying to make it make sense in his head, he  _wanted_ the situation to make sense, but no matter how many times he counted there were still not enough guns, too many monsters, one less salt bag than he had expected. "There has to be a purpose. Give me a  _reason_ , Dean.”

“Like, so I can stake him somewhere so other monsters will come and try to eat him? Am I fucking hunting deer now?” _You think I get off on hurting things, on using evil to chase evil?_

“Don’t use that language with me, boy. It's a valid question, and if you can’t recognize that fact…”

“He’s a person, Dad. And he doesn’t deserve—“

“Shut your mouth, Dean. Right now, shut your mouth.” John was standing now, breathing hard and glaring down at Dean. “There’s something that you have to get through that thick skull of yours, something that you should have known a long time ago, but I guess you’re just not that bright, or I’ve been raising you wrong or something. That boy is not a person. He’s a monster. A  _monster_ , Dean. It doesn’t matter what they deserve, or what they don’t deserve, any more than it matters what a rabid dog deserves. It should be put down, I don’t care if it hasn’t bitten anyone yet. Frankly, I don’t even approve of the shit that goes down in Freak Camp. Some things are basically impossible to kill, but it would be better, far better, to put a bullet through everything that can be put down and not risk of letting all those freaks back into society.”

“Sam is not a freak,” Dean said doggedly. “He’s just—“

“Dean, Dean, Dean.” Dad closed his eyes. “You can’t keep saying that. You can’t keep…you can’t keep being stupid. You can tell me. You can tell me anything, and I won’t be ashamed or angry. You want to…to sleep with it? I know you’ve been going home with men and women, so it’s not that I disapprove that much, but you could do so much better than a fucking monster.”

“Dad!” Dean turned away. “It’s not about that. It’s not.” _Even though it could be._ “This is about what’s right, and about what I want…”

“You can’t just tell me that you want to get a freak out of FREACS and that it’s because you  _want_ to. That just makes me think you want a pet monster, because I never bought you a dog.”

“Sam’s not a dog!” Dean snapped, spinning, feeling anger breaking out of his voice. “And he’s not a fucking freak...”

“Dean, he is.”

“...and I’m getting him out of Freak Camp whether or not you approve. Bobby said I don’t have much time if I want to…”

“I’m going to gut Singer," John said abruptly.

“Why do you do that?” Dean asked, moving close enough that he could push out his hands and shove Dad over if he wanted to. For the first time, he kind of wanted to. “Why do you blame people for things that aren’t their fault?”

“If Singer told you to get a monster out of camp…”

“He said that Sam might not last much longer, not that I should get him out. God, Dad, don’t always blame other people for things that you—“

“Are you saying that it’s  _my fault_ my son wants a freak as a pet?” John roared.

Dean gritted his teeth and shoved. Not hard, but angry. More of a jerk. Dad's chest against his hands felt the same as any other guy's he'd shoved, maybe a little heavier, maybe a little less give. But there was nothing normal about this. It felt strange, wrong, and right all at the same time. “I’m  _saying_ that maybe you should try listening to me for once instead of jumping to conclusions all the time.”

John swayed, put his hand to his chest where Dean's hands had been, and stared like he'd slugged him. “I don’t listen to you," he said softly, almost shaking, "because then you come up with fucking stupid ideas like this, ideas that will get both of us killed.”

“Well, thanks Dad," Dean said, throwing his arms out and stepping back before he really did slug the man. "If I’m that much of a screw up, why do you even hunt with me? You gave me the Impala even though I'm too much of a fuck-up to find my own hunts? When you went off to drink or torture demons or whatever shit—”

“Watch your tongue, or I’ll beat some sense into you.”

 _Like you could_ , Dean thought. “I’m getting Sam out, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me."

It was a breaking point, for something they had never thought could break, for something they had never thought about very much at all. A man doesn't think about his bones until he feels them on the edge of shattering. The Winchesters froze, staring hard into each other's eyes.

“He’s a fucking monster, like what killed your mother,” John said at last. “He’ll get you killed.”

“No,” Dean said. Didn’t even give a damn what Dad thought he was saying no to. Just…no. No to all of it. No to everything Dad had ever told him about Sam, and a big fucking no to his ideas about what were right for them.

He went to the bed and began shoving things into his duffle. He didn't think about it, he didn't even bother to reassemble the shotgun before dumping it in with old candy wrappers and his spare set of socks. He was waiting for Dad to say something, anything, and at the same time knew he wouldn't say a fucking thing Dean wanted to hear. Dean had thrown his bag over his shoulder and reached for the doorknob when John's voice snapped the silence, as sure and irrevocable as a silver round cutting into a shapeshifter's heart.

“You walk out that door for a freak, don’t expect to come crawling back. Don’t come back at all.”

Dean froze, his hand on the doorknob. “You don’t mean that,” he said, but his voice wasn’t sure, because, in the end, he wasn’t sure. Dad had never in his life patched together a relationship, unless it was a dire necessity. When the emotional waters got rough, John Winchester ran like hell and didn’t send postcards.

“I damn well do,” John said. His voice was rough. Dean could pretend it was tears, but he thought rage was more likely, and the skin on the back prickled in something dangerously like fear. “You can’t be my son and a freak-lover, coddling some fucking monster, at the same time.”

“Sam’s not a monster,” Dean said automatically. He couldn't focus on the other words, what he had just heard his own father call him. Couldn't admit he'd heard that, that this is what it had come to. Maybe he was a freak-lover, maybe he was wrong, but he had made a promise and he couldn't, would never, break a promise to Sam.

In that moment he truly realized that this could be the end. That because of Sam, he might walk out on the man who had rocked him when he cried, who had carried him sleeping from the backseat of the Impala when he was a child. The man who had given him his first gun, had taught him to defend himself and everything he would ever need to know about saving people, about caring about others. John Winchester might be a pain in the ass, but he had been the one rock of Dean’s life. The one thing to hold on to when blood, death, and monsters—some of them human—were all the world contained, and Mom was nothing but scattered ashes and a cold marble monument.

He realized that he could lose it all, but he still had to take the last step. Because losing Sam would hurt just as much. And if he didn't go now, everything he took pride in - who he  _was_ , his identity as Dean Winchester - would be meaningless. A joke. 

If John Winchester noticed the moment, if he could feel the same tension in the air that threatened to suffocate Dean, then he didn’t pay any attention to it.

“Damn right I mean it,” he said. “I would rather see you dead than welcoming a fucking monster into your life and your pants.”

Dean tightened his grip on the door and jerked it open. “I’m sorry to disappoint you then, sir,” he said, when there was nothing more between him and the night air than the thin hope that Dad would realize what he had said and take it back. Not that Dean expected that. He was John fucking Winchester, after all, and he had never not meant anything he said: not when he threatened a monster’s life, not when he had cried over Mom, not when he told Dean that the greatest hope in his life was a dirty, perverted, badly conceived desire. Dean fingered the keys for the Impala in his pocket. “But I’m going, and you can’t stop me.”

John’s face went blank, then he reached back to the bed for his gun. “Damned if I can’t.”

“You gonna shoot me, Dad?” Dean taunted. He mocked him so that he didn’t break down right there. Maybe to beg for forgiveness, or just to cry. He hadn’t ever expected Dad to understand. But he hadn’t expected this.

“Dean, just close the door and we’ll talk about this.” But John was still reaching for the holy water and his gun. Dean hadn’t hunted with the man for years without recognizing the signs that meant he thought that there was something in front of him worth killing

“You never fucking listen to me, Dad,” Dean said, and then he turned and ran.

Ran to the Impala, fumbled the keys into the lock, and was out of the hotel parking lot and speeding for the highway before he dared to look back.

John Winchester stood in the parking lot, staring after him, eyes wide, haunted and horrible. That was the face he wore when he remembered the people he couldn’t save, or when he talked about his beautiful, spunky Mary, dead on a pyre. Now that was the face he wore watching Dean ride away.

He shouted something as Dean turned the corner, squealing the Impala’s tires trying to get away from the knowledge that he was leaving behind everything he had once thought made him  _him_.

He didn’t know what John had said, but he had a pretty good guess.

 _You’re dead to me._

“Well, fuck you too, sir,” Dean said to the highway that stretched before him under the moon.

He was proud of how his voice didn’t shake at all.

When his cell phone lit up an hour later, Dad’s name flashing, he didn’t pick up.

~*~

Bobby was having a quiet, hot tea moment—with a little brandy in it to reward himself after a long but satisfying hunt—when one of his early warning alarms placed around the edges of the junk yard to make it harder for enemies, natural and supernatural alike, to sneak up on him, went off. The tea went back down to the table, and Bobby grabbed a shotgun, a silver knife, and a flask of holy water—just to cover all the bases—and camped himself out on the porch, trying to look casual while looking everywhere at once.

There were more tripwires and safeguards in the back of the house, including a motion sensor. Unless the thing moved too fucking fast to trigger those, he'd get another warning before anything happened.

He expected to have to wait ten, fifteen minutes—anything that could figure out where he lived was probably smart enough to know that coming after him at his house was going to be a festival of pain for all concerned—but about the time he was thinking that he should have brought his tea out to the patio so that it didn't get cold before the shit went down, the last enemy he expected to see walked, brazen as you please, down the bare dirt driveway.

Dean Winchester looked...rumpled and a little wild, like he'd been invited to hell and jumped out of the basket halfway. His eyes were a little crazy too, like if he kept them wide enough he would be able to see any fucking thing about to jump out at him. He had his gun on his hip and his hand kept straying toward it, as though the junker cars and random machinery could become a threat.

Bobby moved to set the gun down—this was  _Dean_ after all—but his hand wouldn't quite let go. Dean didn't quite look like Dean, at the moment, and he knew that the last thing the kid would want, if he was out of his head or possessed or something, would be for Bobby  _not_ to defend himself just because the enemy wore Dean's face.

Dean stopped far enough away that Bobby wouldn't want to risk throwing the knife, but close enough that it would be easy work to get him with the shotgun. He took in Bobby's gun, and his mock-relaxed posture, and if anything the crazy look in his eyes got worse.

"You gonna shoot me, Bobby?" he called. It didn't sound like he was joking. It sounded like he was pissed and angry and terrified, and that tone hit Bobby hard.

"Hey, Dean," he answered. "Could you throw your pistol down, kid?"

Dean glanced down, his hand moving to the gun, and then looked back up.

Bobby felt like he'd been socked in the stomach. Was Dean Winchester  _fucking tearing up?_

"Why? Want to me to make it fucking easier? The unarmed ones are always the best, right? You can take your time lining up the sights." Dean's voice was mocking, grating, but he unbuckled the gun and tossed it sideways. Not somewhere that he couldn't get to, and probably before Bobby could shoot him, with a good dive, but far enough away that Bobby could feel some of the tension unknot in his back.

"What the hell are you talking about, Dean?" Bobby stood and put the shotgun down against his chair. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't think that it was going to get better with a cold-iron loaded shotgun. Maybe a little holy water would help, but he seriously hoped not. That meant that the anti-demon possession tattoo he'd had John get the kid wasn't working anymore, and if those weren't working, then a number of hunters Bobby knew were screwed, and Armageddon was probably scheduled for next week. "Come here."

"I figured Dad would have told you by now." Dean didn't look any better, didn't look any more reassured, but he was at least coming closer, mounting the stairs like each step brought him closer to his death. "I just kind of hoped...seeing as you practically fucking  _told_ me to..."

Bobby felt a lurch in his stomach, like the porch had dropped out from under him or a ghost had just tossed him. "What did I tell you to do, kid?"

Dean gave him a look. Bobby couldn't have said what was in the look, but nothing good. Nothing that a nineteen-year-old should have in his eyes. Then again, this was a nineteen-year-old  _hunter_. That spelled seven kinds of fucked up right there.

And Bobby had let it all happen.

He couldn't quite stop his hand from twitching for his knife when Dean reached for something in his back pocket. Bobby even had a hard time slowing his heart down when it became clear that it was a piece of paper, just a stupid piece of paper, slightly crumpled from being in Dean's pocket. It looked like a form for a driver's license or maybe a passport.

Dean put it on the table between them, and straightened it absently, like he couldn't quite understand how it had gotten those crease marks.

"I'm getting Sam out of Freak Camp," Dean said dully.

Bobby's world froze, realization creeping up on him the same slow horror as a broken-legged zombie. Dean had acted on his advice, and something had gone wrong. Not that he was really even surprised, it was just that...he'd made that call maybe a week ago. Less.

He tried to think exactly when it had been, but couldn't piece it together. He'd been at Freak Camp, and then he'd gone on a hunt, and then he'd come home...

And now Dean was standing on his front porch looking like something the cat dragged in. Or maybe the werewolf. It certainly felt like something was missing. Usually, even when crap went down, Dean would stand in the middle of it, swinging baseball bats and swearing and holding his own. Not on Bobby's porch looking three steps from sane. 

"Dean..." he started.

"You gonna cut me off, too, Bobby?" Dean laughed. "I guess that's what I get for being a damn freak-lover, right?"

Bobby swallowed painfully. That was a horrible sound Dean had just made. And horrible words to go along with them. He knew, right then, that something was seriously wrong with Dean Winchester. And somehow, it was probably his fault. "Who said that, Dean? Who cut you off?"

Dean still wouldn't look at him, his hands moving over where the gun and the paper used to be, as though he had lost something comforting and wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands now that it was gone. "You gotta tell me first, Bobby. What do you think? What do you think now that you know I'm a f-freak-lover and I'm getting a monster out of Freak Camp for my own perverted ends, or whatever the fuck you want to say. 'Cause I'm getting Sam out. I'm fucking  _getting Sam out_ and you can't fucking stop me." Dean's head snapped up, and the last few words were practically snarled into Bobby's face.

He resisted the urge to back away from the raw rage and pain on Dean's face. "That's going to be hard," he said at last. "You...you got all the forms?"

From the look on Dean's face, he hadn't expected that. Good. Bobby had the feeling that if he  _had_ said anything that Dean had expected, the kid would have gone for his throat, unarmed or not.

Dean took a shuddering breath and practically collapsed into the second chair, the one farthest away from Bobby's shotgun. He put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands and just breathed for a long minute. The paper crackled under his elbow.

Bobby breathed out carefully as well, and inched closer, like Dean was a wild animal that might bite if startled. He wasn't going to touch him yet. Until he knew what the hell was going on.

"Who cut you off, kid?" he asked again, easing down into his chair. He needed the answer to that question. And he needed brandy. As soon as he got the one, he figured he'd get them both the other.

Dean didn't even look up, and when he spoke the rage was gone from his voice. Bobby hadn't ever noticed before how much of what made Dean Dean was the humor, anger or cheerfulness in his voice. Now, with Dean's voice void of emotion, Bobby had to stop his hand from twitching toward the holy water again.

"Who do you think?" he replied.

 _Damn you to hell, John,_  Bobby thought.  _Couldn't you have just._.. And that's where the thought ended, because he had no idea what John could have done differently. John could have done so much better, but Bobby, as well as anyone else, knew that John would have only one response.

"Fuck," he said. Now it was his turn not to look at Dean. "But...I'm here. I'm not..." _going to be an asshole like that bastard that calls himself your father_ , "...going to say a damn thing. I mean, I practically..." He took another deep breath. It was a day for breathing carefully. Too many things were too close to shattering for him to do anything but tread carefully. "It's good to see you, kid. You're welcome here."

Dean's shoulders shook and for a second Bobby thought he was crying. Then he realized that it was laughter, the closest thing a Winchester could get to weeping on someone else's patio. "Thanks," Dean rasped at last, when the shaking had left his shoulders and he was looking up again. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but Bobby couldn't see any sign of tears. Dean forced a smile onto his face, and it was one of the most horrible things Bobby'd seen recently. Not in his lifetime—demons and werewolves and shifters and ghosts had given him some pretty devastating memories—but in the last week or so...yeah. And it hurt.

"So," Dean continued. "You're okay with the...with Sam. And me. Getting him out, I mean that's..." He closed his mouth and shook his head. "I'm all fucked up, Bobby. And it's not Sam's fault!"

"Didn't think it was," Bobby replied. "Yeah, I'm okay with it."  _Would I have called you if I didn't think that kid deserved better?_

"Good." Dean dropped his hands to the paper again, smoothing it again over and over. Bobby figured that Dean was going to have to print a new form before he turned it in to anyone. "Then, would you be willing to...I need another couple signatures to say that I'm...sane, and shit like that, and I'm not sure...I mean there are a few other people, but..." Dean stopped. "If you don't want to, I'll understand. The ASC and the Campbells can be....fucked up. I know that some people don't want to get under their radar."

Like John, Bobby thought. Yeah, he didn't want to mess with the ASC either. But, then again, he also wanted to boot them in the ass, so maybe this could count as both. "Sure," he said. "No problem. Hand me a pen."  _And if I wasn't such a coward, I would have done this myself when I realized how bad it is. And when I realized that that kid wasn't the worst monster in the room. Not even close._

"Good." Dean nodded his head, and his expression turned into something closer to an actual smile. "Good."

He still looked messed up, but there was a bit more sanity in his face, and that made Bobby feel easier. Last thing they needed was two crazy Winchesters. One— _fuck you, John_ —was more than enough. "You can stay here tonight, if you don't mind. And pull the Impala up. You've still got her...right?"

Dean's mouth quirked. "Yeah, she and I made a fast getaway." He stood, stretching like he'd been in a cramped position for far too long, even though he'd only been sitting in the chair for maybe a minute. "I'll bring her around. Then we can start on the paperwork. Fuck, Bobby, you should see the forms I need to fill out. And I can't even forge them, because ASC is going to background check everything. Fucking bureaucracy."

Bobby thought that worrying about a little paperwork was better than Dean thinking about his life crashing down around his ears. And he could always remind the kid that he had more people in his life than John.

"I'm a big bundle of excitement," he said dryly. "You can crash in the guest room as long as you want, and I'll do my best with the paperwork. And if you need more than just my signature, you might want to try Jim Murphy. I'm sure he'd...understand too." Now that the whole thing was rolling, it made him a little nervous to think about Dean getting a monster out of the camp, being responsible for another life that had been fucked up that much—and might still be dangerous, after all, the kid had been in _Freak Camp,_  and they didn't do that to people for parking tickets—but it was far too late now.

And he'd do his best to keep everyone sane and off each other's throats. Oh, he could see fun times in his future.

Maybe he'd finally shoot John.

That shouldn't have sounded as appealing as it did at the moment.

~*~

Crusher ground Sam's face into the wall, his arm twisted almost to the breaking point, and pushed his hips into Sam's ass.

"You think you can disrespect me, freak?" Crusher said. "I know what you say behind my back."

Sam felt Crusher's erection, felt the hand that wasn't holding him against the wall sliding down his hip, and wondered, almost idly, when he would have to take the next step and break the guard's arm. Not that that was a smart idea, or an idea that would let him live past the evening, or even an idea that would actually stop anything, but Sam knew that he wouldn't be able to control forever the freewheeling panic that spun just beneath the surface of his careful, blank calm. There was no way Sam would let Crusher be first. He would, quite literally, rather die.

Crusher's hand found its goal, clamping around his dick and balls, and Sam ground his own face into the wall, twisting his cheek again the rough plaster to keep his whimpering under control.

"You know how long I've waited for you, Pretty Freak?" Crusher hissed. "For fucking  _ever_. Too goddamn long to ride your tight ass."

It's not like Sam deserved anything more than this. It was simply that he  _could not_  let Crusher do what he wanted without trying to stop it.

He was just about to do it, throw away all hope, throw away his life in favor of breaking Crusher's jaw and running into the guards' guns, when Karl came around the corner.

"Rosenstein!" he shouted, hitting his billy club against his hand. "Let the freak up."

Crusher eased his hold a little, and Sam took a shaky breath, feeling a few drops of blood slide down his scraped face.

"You stay the fuck out of this, Karl," Crusher snarled.

Karl held up his hands. "Hey, it's not me." He pointed the club at Sam. "Winchester wants him."

The relief that surged through Sam almost hurt. Forty heartbeats ago he had been ready to die, take the last miserable step into death. Now  _Dean_ had come at last, at fucking last, had come, not to save him—Dean had promised, but Sam knew how hard it would be to get a monster out, knew that even if Dean tried it probably wouldn't work—but just for those brief moments of...kindness, of touches, of casual conversations that didn't end in pain. When he had to go to his knees just to survive until the next time he could see Dean, he held onto each meeting, the only thing making life worthwhile.

He almost ran to Reception, Dean's name a promise of salvation, if only for an afternoon.

The new guard, Charlie, nodded toward Room 4, and Sam burst through, smiling involuntarily, breathing heavily, knowing that Dean liked to see him smile.

John Winchester turned when he came in. 

Sam's back hit the door hard. The cold metal cut through the blind panic—and the instinct to deny that this could be happening, to insist that Dean had to be there—but he was still shaking, trapped, terrified. He closed his eyes, fighting hard to bring himself back to blank emptiness, prepared to submit to any blow or order without a flicker of reaction. After all, John Winchester was a hunter. That was what hunters wanted. That was what hunters— _not Dean_ —demanded, and he had always been able to give it to them before, like a good little monster. 

It took too fucking long, already long enough that it might cost him his life. But shit, shit,  _John Winchester_ was the last thing he expected—he had come to see  _Dean_ , he had run like joy was an emotion he deserved to feel because he knew he was going to see Dean, who wanted to see him smile and look him in the eye. Dean was the only person in the world for whom he would let his defenses down. But for his  _father_...his legendary hunter of a father...no, Sam dared not think about joy in the presence of a hunter. 

But given a choice between being trapped under Crusher or being in a room with John Winchester, he would always choose the hunter. It wasn't a question of death or pain, there was no question that the man hated monsters, but he knew John would kill him when he was done, when he stopped being useful. And he would kill him clean. Two things he would never be able to hope for from Crusher. It was better here. Better. But Sam still couldn't stop shaking.

"Sit down." John snapped the order, but it didn't yet carry any promise of pain.

Sam's legs obeyed immediately, thank God, carrying him to the table and chair. He placed his hands palms-up before him, swallowed and closed his eyes as he  _wished_ his hands would stop their trembling. Such obvious fear only made things worse, always.

For a long moment, John was silent, though Sam could feel his eyes on him. At last he said, flatly, "That's not what I came for."

Sam took a quick, deep breath, opening his eyes and lacing his fingers together to force them to be still. He didn't know what the proper response could be, so he went for the safe route. "I'm sorry, sir."

John continued weighing him with his gaze. Sam felt it but didn't dare raise his eyes from the table surface. "I'm here," he continued, "to see what kind of goddamn freak hoodwinked my son. Look at me."

Sam's breath stopped for a moment, but he didn't hesitate. He looked up and met John Winchester's eyes for the first time.

His face was nothing like his son's, had nothing in common that Sam could see. It wasn't about physical resemblance; Dean had never looked at him like he was a monster. Dean's eyes searched his face as though looking for what could make Sam smile; John stared at him with the unchanging contempt and hatred that Sam always expected from reals—all of them except Dean. But John's eyes didn't hold the same malice and sadism as the guards' and hunters'. Sam could see that John wouldn't touch any monster unless he absolutely had to. From the way his hand kept brushing the gun in his holster, Sam knew the man would rather shoot him, right now, than touch him in any way, even to administer a punishment.

It made Sam's heartbeat slow until it didn't feel like it was going to pound out of his chest, and he took a deeper, steadying breath. Whatever happened here, he would be okay.

"Well, you look human enough," John said. His voice was flat, his face as empty and hard as a stone jug. "That always makes it harder, when they look human. A vampire has just as much potential for death whether the fangs are in or out, but it's always hard to take off the head when it's a frightened woman staring back at you, or the face of some poor civilian who doesn't know what they're doing. I still manage. So you're  _Sam_."

Sam cringed at his name, eyes falling, and then raising again. The hunter had told him to look at him, so he would. "Yes, sir."

"That wasn't a question." John's voice remained flat, angry. "I came to see you. To see the monster that's going to get my son killed."

Sam felt like he'd been hit in the chest, all the breath punched out of him. His head jerked down until he was looking down at his folded hands, at the scars on the table, anything while his lungs fought for a way to fill again. He couldn't believe it. That couldn't be true. He hadn't done anything to Dean, not one thing, and there was no way that he could be that wrong, that inherently wrong that just talking to him, knowing him, could hurt Dean in any way. Dean who was always strong and good and confident.

But John Winchester didn't say it like he wanted to make Sam bleed inside—the guards had taught him to identify that edge, even when he couldn't build defenses against it. John sounded like a man stating a fact, a bleak, hopeless, clearly evident and proven fact. "He talks to you like you're human, gets it in his head that some monsters aren't monsters, and one day he's going to come up against something that he trusts, and it's going to walk up behind him and slice his spine."

"I wouldn't—" He couldn't stop himself, couldn't break off the words in time.

"Shut up. You know how his mother died, don't you?" Sam nodded, hunching over his hands. "She went out there trying to help people, save the world, and what did she get for it? Cut up from the back by some coward bastard not even willing to show his face. That's going to be Dean: laid out on some coroner's table because he trusted one too many monsters like you."

Sam's nails bit into his skin. He watched, trying very hard not to react, while blood seeped out from them, slowly, like John's words were eating their way to his heart.

"When he falls, I'm going to come back here and cut your fucking head off," John promised.

Sam nodded again, into his hand. "I hope so," he whispered between the fingers.

John Winchester kicked his chair, and Sam snapped up. "What did you say?"

Sam shook his head, violently. "Nothing, sir."

John stared at him, hand resting again on the gun. He was a hunter. One of the best. But Sam didn't fear him as a hunter. The hunters that made him shake were the ones that came in with big grins and toolboxes from the resource room, the ones that enjoyed tying him down, not because he was a monster but because they could. John Winchester hated him, hated all monsters absolutely, but there was nothing gleeful, nothing personal to that hatred. John Winchester would have put a bullet in a werewolf or staked any trickster with the same hatred with which he looked at Sam.

Sam could have almost felt safe—he could kill Sam, yes, but like an electric fence could kill if Sam got too close, it wouldn't hunt down its prey, wouldn't smile listening to the screams—if not for the words.

"I have to keep him safe from you," John said. "You fuck with his head, and I can't lose him. He's all I—" He snapped his mouth shut, and his hand tightened on his gun. "Don't wait for him, freak, he's not coming back. If it's the last thing I do, I'm not going to let some damn pretty monster sink his claws into my son's head and drag him down. I let Mary go. You bastards won't take Dean too."

John Winchester walked past him, and Sam flinched, but the hunter didn't even notice, didn't even hesitate.

Sam closed his eyes tight. "You going to shoot me?" he called. He prayed for that. Better death than a life without Dean. Maybe he would be with Rebecca. Maybe he would vanish into nothing. Maybe he would be in hell. Better any of those than Freak Camp knowing Dean wasn't coming back.

He heard John turn. "What would be the point? I have other monsters to spend my bullets on."

And then Dean's father was gone.

The guards left Sam in interrogation for a very long time. Sam didn't bother to count the seconds. He stared at his hands and refused to think of anything at all.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is our great pleasure—and sadness—to present to you in this chapter Director Jonah Campbell.
> 
> He is our archvillain, folks, and I may have had a minor psychological snap while writing/editing his chapters, so we want to take a moment to stress that IF YOU NEED TO RUN AWAY, we understand, but we really want you to come back for Chapter Thirteen (to be posted March 18th) because we PROMISE you it'll get better. This will not last!

In the middle of the evening, when the guards usually chose their pick of monster ass and the rest of the monsters settled cautiously into their low cots, Victor and Karl came for Sam. They pulled him up off the cot, and panic made Sam twist involuntarily in their arms. Karl jerked his arms higher up behind his back until he stopped squirming, and Victor pushed the hair off his face. It was long again.

"Director Campbell wants to see you," he said. "Better make sure he can look at that pretty face of yours. Come on. Don't make us leave bruises where he'll see them."

The two guards slid a leash through his collar—which doubled his heart rate and made it almost impossible not to tense against their hands—but he didn't have even the freedom to walk behind them with the collar. They practically carried him to Administration. 

Administration was the building where they kept the special library on all supernatural beings, and also where reals, including important visitors, gathered to discuss the progress FREACS was making on neutralizing the supernatural threat. He’d been there before when he researched with the books or on the computers with other younger monsters, but Karl and Victor carried him straight past anything familiar and through the heavy iron doors that monsters were usually forbidden to enter.

They pulled him through beautifully carpeted hallways, a couple of rooms so elegant and clean that Sam felt he was dirtying them just with his shoes dragging along the floor, and, eventually, two huge doors. The plaque next to the doors read  _Director Jonah Campbell_.

Director Campbell looked up from paperwork on his desk when they came in. Karl dumped Sam to the floor, and he hit his knees hard. 

"That is 88UI6703?" the Director asked, getting up. The room had a huge desk at the head, but also a dark wooden conference table stretching down one edge of the room and a bookshelf against the opposite. "Well, don't just stand there and stare, get him on his feet."

Karl reached down again and pulled Sam up by his hair.

The Director moved forward. He was a lean but fit older man with gray eyes in a cold, thoughtful face. He reached out and cupped Sam's chin in his hand. Sam cringed, but Karl’s grip on his arms tightened enough to leave bruises, and he forced himself to still. 

"I've heard interesting things about you, 88UI," the Director said. He glanced at Victor, who was shifting uneasily behind Karl, club in hand. "What do the guards call him?"

Victor hesitated for a moment. Sam noticed through his own panic that Victor too was nervous. "Pretty Freak, sir," he said. "Because he's—"

"An attractive young monster amid a crowd of skin-sloughers and muzzled vamps," the Director said. "Yes, I understand, Mr. Todd. I've always said that the guards lacked creativity."

Karl glared, the livid burn-scar across his cheek flushing at the insults, but Victor kept his eyes just to the right of the Director’s eyes, the way Sam looked at guards.

“Is he intelligent?” the Director asked Victor, ignoring Karl’s glare.

Victor hesitated. “I’m not...positive what you mean, sir.”

Sam kept his eyes on the floor. Victor sounded cautious, wary, and he was always the smartest of the guards. Sam had already been afraid of the Director on principle—he was in charge of FREACS and the ASC, and a word from him could destroy any monster or guard in the facility—but now he knew that he had another very good reason to be.

“I realize we pay you to keep the vermin under control and not to think, but do I really need to rephrase the question, Mr. Todd?”

Victor straightened. “No, sir. He seems...bright enough.” The guard clearly struggled to find words to explain himself and was coming up short. “Takes direction well.”

“Obedient, good. You see, Mr. Todd, Mr. Horwitz, I have a theory that the only monster that shouldn’t be slit open on a rack is an obedient monster. Intelligence in freaks is only useful as far as it can be shaped and wielded by a human. Otherwise it is nothing but guile that serves to make the freak more dangerous. Would you agree?”

Sam risked a glance toward Victor while the Director was talking. The guard had a pinched, sour look on his face, like he knew he was being dressed down to give someone else a lesson and didn’t like it at all.

The Director slapped Sam, lightly, and Sam’s head snapped up.

The man’s smile looked almost kind, but there was steel and venom in his eyes. “You do not look at other human beings while I am talking to them. That is disrespect and will not be tolerated. Do you understand, 88UI?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said, dropping his eyes.

The Director reached out and cupped Sam’s chin, forcing his head back up. He stared into Sam's eyes—he had to look up slightly, Sam was already horribly tall, and the Director was not a particularly tall man—for a long minute, and then he came to a decision. "You can leave us, gentlemen. Just hand that leash to me. Thank you. You may wait in the hall. Naturally, if it sounds like I'm being slaughtered or anything along those lines, feel free to come to my rescue." The Director's mouth quirked, and he gave a sharp tug on Sam's leash just as Victor and Karl let him go.

Sam unbalanced, barely catching himself in time.

"Good reflexes," the Director said, and then pulled him to the conference table. There were rings set into the edges at even intervals, between the chairs. A monster chained to that table would be close, but not necessarily in the way of a diner. The Director wrapped the leash several times through a ring so that Sam was wedged tight to the high back of one of the graceful wooden chairs. He would have had more room if he moved between two of the chairs, but the Director jerked the leash sideways to make sure that Sam was behind a chair, and then padlocked the leash in place. The Director caught his gaze and smiled in slight amusement. "The key is in my desk," he said. "You'll get out of here when I tell you you may, and not a moment before. Respond when I talk to you."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, staring down.

"Good, you can respond to basic commands. Mr. Todd is a bright man, though he’s certainly not family, but I’m never quite sure if other people share the same definitions of intelligence and training that I do. Uncle Samuel certainly didn’t. Are you obedient otherwise, or are you punished often?"

"Not often, sir." 

"Good." The Director rubbed his hands together. "Let's see if you're lying, shall we. Put your hands on the chair in front of you. You let go, you lift your hands up, you resist me in any way and I’ll have Mr. Horwitz—I believe he still has a grudge against you because of that regrettable incident that led to his disfigurement?—come in and start cutting off unnecessary limbs. Do you understand, or do you have questions?”  
   
Sam licked his lips and planted his hands on the back of the chair. “Which limbs are unnecessary, sir?”  
   
The Director smiled. “He gets to decide.”

Then he touched Sam on the shoulder.

Sam bowed his head and gritted his teeth, even though the hand was gentle, thoughtful. From his shoulder, the Director moved until his fingers hooked under the collar and pulled Sam's head, hard, sideways. Sam choked a little, but held on tighter to the chair, and the Director smiled and patted him in the center of his back. "Smart," he said. "Good boy."

When his other hand slid over Sam's hip, Sam straightened and stared straight ahead, crushing the head of the chair with his hands, trying to hold onto some focus, some control to head off the panic. The Director didn’t fuck monsters. That was the rumor; Sam had never seen proof either way, but he still expected the hand to slide around to where he was pressed against the chair, to hook into the waistband of his pants.

The Director paused. “I take it that the guards, such as Mr. Todd and Mr. Horwitz, enjoy using your body for their own sexual gratification?” Sam took a shaky breath, and the grip on his hip tightened. “Answer me, freak.”

Sam exhaled. “Yes, sir.”

“Often?”

He’d blown only Crusher and Pete this past week. It had been a good week. “Yes, sir.”

“What sexual practices have you been taught to perform? Be specific and comprehensive.”

No. No, no, no. He’d had guards and hunters ask him that before, though not in those words. The Director’s hand loosened and then re-tightened, grinding long fingers into the bruises from his first grip. “Blowjobs. Handjobs. I stand still while they h-handle themselves or m-m-me. I t-t-talk until they get hard and sometimes th-thr-through it. I mouth their balls and lick their come off the floor. S-sometimes while they are interrogating me, it also seems to c-cause them s-sexual g-gratification.”

“Have you been anally penetrated by any object or body part?”

He couldn’t stop a small whimper from working its way out of his throat. And the worst part, the absolutely worst part was that he knew the man behind him would hear, would know. He was very aware of the Director’s hand. Aware of the slowly growing pain in his hip, terrified those long fingers would relax and begin sliding beneath his pants. “N-no, sir.”

“Why not? You seem to have been used for everything else.”

Sam couldn’t slow down the spike in his breathing or the way his arms shook before him, still clenching the chair. “I-I don’t know, sir.”  _Please please please I don’t know but please let whatever keeps them off still be there, please not today._

The Director made a small  _hmmmm_ sound. “Do you touch yourself for the sexual pleasure of yourself or others?”

Sam shook his head violently and remembered just in time to keep his grip on the back of the chair. He pulled back slightly, and the Director’s hand slammed him back into the unyielding wood. “N-n-no,” he gasped. “No, sir. Never.”

“Good.” The hand left Sam’s hip. “Spread your legs,” the Director said, and when Sam didn’t move to obey quickly enough—he wasn’t thinking quite right, couldn’t get his brain and his body to work together well, or maybe it was that his brain had stopped thinking and all his body could remember to do was clutch the chair—the Director shoved him forward, hard, over the curved wood and kicked his feet apart. Sam gasped in pain and felt the Director’s hand jerk his head up, hard.

The Director’s voice was still calm, clear, like he was reciting an instruction manual. “When I tell you to do something, you will do it promptly and without question. Hesitations will be punished. Mistakes will be punished. Any sign of disrespect or rebellion will be punished, because a monster without obedience is a plague-carrying vermin, consuming resources it does not deserve and existing only as a threat to humankind. Do you understand, or will you require more explicit instruction?”

“I und-d-derstand, s-sir,” Sam choked out.

The Director shoved his head forward, and then let his hair go. “Good. You will not close your legs, you will not let go of the chair, and please keep your noise to a minimum.”

Sam swallowed, gritted his teeth together and closed his eyes while both of the Director’s hands settled on his waist. This time, there was nothing casual or gradual about the touch. The Director’s hands moved easily, inquisitively over his entire body, like he was inspecting a horse or a beast in an auction. He squeezed Sam’s arms, ran a hand up his chest, and then jerked his shirt up. Sam flinched, but managed to stop himself from crying out while he felt the cool air of the office against his bare back, the even cooler caress of the Director’s fingertips.

“Fascinating scar pattern,” he said, half to Sam, half to himself. “In any other monster I’d say you were a piece of shit that ought to be burned. But of course, most monsters don’t survive for ten and a half years in our facility. You’re quite an anomaly, 88UI. With the exception of certain individuals in Intensive Containment, you are our longest surviving monster. I find that fascinating.”

When the Director hooked his thumbs in Sam’s pants and pulled them as far down as they would go with his legs spread apart, Sam couldn’t keep back a choked cry, which he repeated when the Director began touching him below the waist, even though he handled Sam’s hips and ass with the same dispassionate thoroughness with which he had examined Sam’s shoulders and back.

The Director paused, crouched behind Sam, his hand resting on Sam’s right inner thigh. His fingers clenched, hard, like they had earlier on his hip, and Sam sobbed again. ”88UI, do you honestly expect me to be aroused by touching you?”

Sam gasped. It was too hard to force air into his lungs when a hand was _right there_ , when there was a real human being behind him. The Director didn't sleep with monsters. Sam had seen guards—fucking  _guards_ —whipped in the middle of camp because they implied that this man had fucked something supernatural.

But maybe the Director just didn’t let it get out. Few men were like Crusher or Victor, willing and able to flip it out during a filmed interrogation, in front of the other freaks in the shower, or in the barracks with the lights on. Maybe he fucked things, but when  _he_ fucked someone they never came back. The Director of ASC would have ways to clean up the mess so that no one asked questions.

The Director’s hand closed like a vice and yanked back, his nails cutting into Sam’s skin and dragging upward. Sam gasped, remembering in time, barely in time, to keep his legs spread, to keep his hands on the chair. His hands were so tightly clenched that he couldn’t feel his fingers any more.

But still, the Director’s voice was calm, smooth, if maybe still a bit sharp from his earlier question. “When I ask you a question, you will answer. Do I need to repeat myself?”

Sam shook his head. “No, sir. No, sir.” He could feel wetness dripping down his leg, but he couldn’t tell if the Director had drawn blood or if it was just sweat.

The hand didn’t loosen. “Are you responding to my directive about not making me repeat myself, or are you answering my original question? I expect you to be specific and clear in your responses, 88UI.”

“I d-d-don’t....I d-don’t expect anything, sir. I don’t know...I can’t...I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Sam shook, and ducked his head, trying to control himself, trying not to beg, because he didn’t know what he would be begging for.

The hand withdrew. The Director stood up. “You may remove your hands from the chair,” he said, walking to his desk. Sam released the wood slowly and tried to surreptitiously rub his tingling fingers. The Director took a wipe from a box on his desk and fastidiously cleaned his hand. Sam didn’t look at him directly, but he though he caught a hint of red. “Let me be clear,” the Director said. “I have no sexual interest in monsters. Put your clothing back on. But I do have a very deep, practical interest in making them useful for humans, instead of the scourge they currently are, in spite of my family’s best efforts. To that end, you will report to me every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. for the foreseeable future so that you may be trained, educated, and conditioned into the kind of monster that deserves the food and air you consume. Mr. Todd will bring you next week, so you know exactly where to go, but I expect you to arrive promptly and on your own after that. Is that understood, 88UI?”

Sam pulled his pants up and tugged his shirt down. “Y-y-yes, sir.”

The Director came back, and he was smiling. A real smile that reached his eyes. “Good.” He unlocked the padlock holding Sam to the table, unwound the leash. “You may go now.”

Sam left, head down, walked past Victor and Karl without even pausing to look at them, and kept his eyes on the ground all the way to the barracks. He couldn’t stop shaking, even when he was in the safety of the night air. 

~*~

As he jerked the wheel through the last few turns on the winding road to Freak Camp, Dean had to acknowledge that he was acting more like a drug addict inches from his next hit than an upstanding member of the hunting community. 

Ha, “upstanding member of the hunting community.” The way Bobby talked, that meant Campbells and Campbell kiss-asses (he’d thought only Dad felt that way), but at least Dean’s paperwork looked as good as two crafty bastards—Bobby and Jim Murphy could stretch the truth better than even Dad—and a desperate twenty-year-old could make it. 

Hell, it had been over a month since he had last seen Sam, and in spite of Bobby’s support and the new-found friend he'd discovered in Pastor Jim—which he literally appreciated more than he could say—it still felt like Sam was all he had left in the world, the only reason he was staying alive and keeping it together. Sam needed him. Sam trusted him, had been trusting him ( _for way too many years now_ ) to save him.  And now Dean  _needed_ to see him. Because if he couldn't save Sam, then he wasn't sure what else in his life would be worth saving.

He pulled into an empty spot in the FREACS parking lot, slammed the Impala’s door shut harder than he usually would treat his baby, and strode toward the main doors. Sometimes he felt like he was losing control, and other times he  _knew_ he was losing control, but right now he just needed, badly, a reminder of why he was doing this: cutting open his life to display it to the ASC, leaving behind everything he had ever known. If he could get Sam to look him in the eye for a few seconds, if he could break the barriers between them—which seemed both more impermeable and more brittle every time he came—the shitstorm that had become his life, the nightmare of the last few weeks, would be put into perspective. If he could get Sam to give him even a half-smile, it would all be okay again.

Dean couldn’t wait. He needed that private room, that moment when he could take Sam’s hand in his and promise  _Sam_ that everything would be all right, like he needed guns, booze, the Impala, and Da—Bobby. He needed to know that Sam was okay, that Dean could save him, because then maybe the hollow ache—which had been running under everything he did since he screeched out of that motel parking lot—would ease at least a little.

Yeah, seeing Sam would be kind of like a hit.

His building anticipation slammed headfirst into a wall at the reception desk.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester— _Dean_ ,” Madison said, smiling at him through her lashes. “But you have a withdrawal permit pending, and until that is either approved or denied, I cannot allow you access to the facility.”  
   
Dean blinked at her. “Wait, what?” His mouth felt very dry, and there was a weird blank feeling behind his eyes, like he was searching for, and failing to find, any kind of acceptable response in his head.  
   
She smiled at him, but he could see concern around the edges. “Your monster withdrawal permit? For,” she glanced down at the computer, “permanent removal of 88UI6703 from the facilities. Until that is either approved or denied, I cannot allow you access.”  
   
They hadn’t mentioned that at Headquarters. They had just taken his information and told him they would be in contact. His distant cousin Christian Campbell had been the one handling the process, and he hadn’t said one damn thing about not being allowed back in fucking Freak Camp.  
   
“Any idea why?” Dean asked.  
   
She shrugged sweetly. “It’s a security measure. The separation helps the review committee determine if the hunter’s desire to remove the monster has been influenced by any supernatural ability, like those possessed by sirens and psychics. It’s just safer if the hunter does not have access to  _any_ monster for the period of review. We’re all susceptible.”  
   
He hadn’t told Sam that he was going to do this. He had wanted it to be a surprise, or maybe he just wanted to be sure it would actually work before he got Sam’s hopes up. The idea of disappointing Sam hurt too much to risk. And now that pansy hesitation and uncertainty had made it so that Sam wouldn’t know that Dean was coming for him, wouldn’t know why he had gone away. “How long does it usually take?”  
   
“For a permanent removal? Anywhere from three to ten months.” She interpreted Dean’s strangled exclamation as criticism and bristled. “We take containment very seriously,” she told him. “The background check alone can take months. Any hunter requesting to remove a monster has to be considered absolutely respectable, with a traceable history of successful hunts and no hint of mental instability or supernatural contamination. As a hunter, I’m sure you understand how very hard it is to get an accurate profile. Furthermore, the monster’s history and mental profile also have to be examined to make sure that when released. the hunter will be able to keep it under control. The committee has to determine if any additional measures—such as fang removal for a vampire or a bone-harness for a shapeshifter—have to be taken to ensure the safety of both the hunter and the civilian population that could be endangered if a once-contained monster escaped its handler’s control. The process is involved and can’t be rushed.”  
   
And it wasn’t guaranteed that Dean could get him out in the end. The fucking Campbell committee could always say ‘no’. And then Dean would do his best to burn Freak Camp to the ground and get Sam the hell out anyway. “Is there any way, any way at all, that I can speed it up?”  
   
“Unless you need a specific monster to complete a time-sensitive hunt, or have a previous bait permit—neither of which I can influence, you would have to go back to Headquarters—no.” She smiled at him. “Don’t worry. You’re  _Dean Winchester_. I’m sure that the committee is already working to get your request put through as soon as possible.”  
   
Dean didn’t know if that would be good enough.

The disappointment hit him hard just outside the doors. He had to stop and lean against the wall, fighting the urge to run around the perimeter and find a place where he could climb and hurdle the fence.  All he needed was a minute with Sam, a minute to look at him, make sure he was okay, and tell him Dean would get him out of there one way or another soon enough.

Dean would infiltrate the camp any way he had to, if those old puckered assholes dared  _reject_ his application. He had nothing left to lose. Absolutely nothing. If it came down to it, he wouldn't hesitate to grab Sam, shoot his way out of FREACS, and deal with the shitstorm after that.  But Sam deserved better than a life on the run with Dean and the Impala, crap hotels and credit card fraud, so he had to try to do this the legit way, through the fucking bowels of government. And that meant keeping his head on straight.  He couldn't do anything to jeopardize his permit, especially since he was damn lucky Mark hadn’t put a black mark on his record the last time he lashed out inside the camp.

It made him sick sometimes, thinking how he could have ended all his chances, right there, just by losing his temper. He had to be better. He had to wait it out. And hope Sam wouldn’t blame him too much for the fucking time.

He straightened off the wall and looked back into Reception. It was an empty gesture, nothing of the camp interior was visible from the outside, but he couldn’t turn himself away. "Hang on, Sam," he whispered, though he knew it was a hokey move from a cheesy chick-flick.  He needed to say the words aloud, anyway.  "Hang on. I swear to God I'm coming for you."

And then, after another too-long hesitation, Dean made his slow way over the gravel to the Impala.

~*~

The next day, about halfway through dinner, Victor came to the mess hall, nodded to Karl and Lonny, and scanned the monster heads.

“I’m here for Pretty Freak,” he said. “Director wants him, says he’s to be released to go to Administration about this time every Wednesday for the foreseeable future.”

“Think the bossman’s finally fucking something?” Karl sneered.

Lonny shot him a look that would have peeled paint. “Shut the fuck up,” he said. “You want to end up with your back whipped off like Dorian?”

“Take it easy,” Victor said. “He wasn’t here that day.”

“Yeah well, I was, and I don’t want to see that again. Or have it be me. So keep a lid on it, Horwitz.”

“Where’s the freak?”

Lonny jerked his head to where Sam sat, head bowed, waiting. “Over there.”

Victor turned. “Hey, freak!” he called.

Half the monsters in the room glanced up, briefly, eyes wide. Then they saw where Victor was looking and dropped their gazes just as quickly so they wouldn’t be caught with their heads up.

Slowly, the same dull terror he felt before interrogations lining his throat, Sam stood up and walked to Victor.

He expected a leash, a blow, a threat, or  _something_ , but Victor just looked at him like he was a piece of shit he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. “Come on, freak,” he said. “We don’t want to keep Director Campbell waiting.”

The walk to the Director’s office in Administration was silent, tense. Sam felt disturbingly like they were walking toward the same thing together -- not guard and monster, but two creatures going somewhere they didn’t want to go but bound by an unshakable force.

Victor knocked twice, rapidly, on the Director’s door, and pushed open the door when he heard, “Come in.”

This time the Director was leaning against his desk, a stopwatch in hand. He smiled when he met Victor’s eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Todd,” he said. “Right on time.”

“Of course, sir,” Victor said.

“You’re destined for great things, Mr. Todd,” the Director said. “You may go now.”

Victor nodded once. He paused an instant with his eyes on Sam, mouth pressed into something difficult to define - not pity, but at least acknowledgement he did not want to be in Sam’s place. Then he was gone, down the hall. 

The Director got up from his perch on the desk, and moved to a door set in the back wall. “88UI, come here.”

Sam followed the Director into an interrogation room. Bare tile floors, harsh bright lights, and bolts set into the walls at various heights for securing monsters. There were three or four battered chairs in the room, a small table covered in a white sheet, a water tap and a hose by the wall closest to the door, and a drain in the middle of the floor. Two cameras were fixed in opposite corners, and a hook dangled from the ceiling, at about the level where Sam could have touched it if stretched to his full height.

The Director nodded at a chair in the corner. “Strip and put on that pair of underwear. I have no desire to view your genitalia, but skin is a necessity.”

Sam went, slowly, to the chair, and began to strip. He carefully folded everything he had removed, wiggled into the tight white shorts, and then turned around.

"In my opinion,” the Director said, “there is only one reason to keep a monster around, and that is if he's dependable and obedient. That is my goal here, what we are going to work on every week—to see if I can make you into a dependable monster. Do you understand?"

“Yes, sir.”

The Director smiled. “I don’t really think you do, but that is understandable. Come here.”

Sam walked to where the Director indicated, beneath the hook.

The Director took a pair of wide, leather-padded cuffs off the table and snapped them over Sam’s wrists in front of him. Sam’s breath caught, but before he could react, the Director had stepped on a stool and jerked Sam’s arms up until he could slide the chain between the cuffs around the hook.

When he stepped back, kicking the stool away, Sam was trapped, stretched to his full height with his hands above him. He had to stay on his toes or his weight would end up on his shoulders.

The Director looked up at him, went to the corner, and pushed the small table into Sam’s line of sight. There was no drama as he removed and folded the sheet, unveiling the interrogation tools. Knives, shafts, whips, crushers -- not the widest variety Sam had ever seen, but every tool gleamed, polished and clean, in the unforgiving light of the interrogation room. 

There was a knock on the door, and Sam jerked involuntarily, the motion making him swing slightly and pulling on his arms. He was already beginning to feel the ache.

“Come in!” the Director called.

The door opened, and Crusher walked in. The first thing he saw was Sam, and Sam could see the crazy flickering in his eyes. When the guard licked his lips, Sam couldn’t stop himself from making a small sound.

“Good evening, Mr. Rosenstein.” The Director stepped closer to Sam and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Rosenstein has so kindly volunteered to help me. He wants you to be a good,  _obedient_ monster as well, don’t you, Mr. Rosenstein?”  
   
The guard scowled. “Call me Crusher.”  
   
Momentarily distracted from tracing the scars on Sam’s back and his hip, the Director looked up. “No,” he said. His nails dug into the bruises he’d left on Sam’s hip the day before, and Sam gasped and jerked against the chains.  
   
Crusher made a little noise, like he was getting hard, and Sam—so close he could count the wrinkles across the Director’s forehead—saw the brief flash of a smile before the Director’s hand reached the raw nail-marks on his inner thigh and clamped down. Sam writhed harder, and Crushed gasped like he did when Sam knew he was going to be on his knees in the next few seconds. But he wasn’t, because it was the Director that had put him in chains today, the Director that was hurting him right now.  
   
“Is that a problem, Mr. Rosenstein, me using your proper name, giving you the respect you are entitled to as a real human being and a guard at FREACS? Or do you want to leave and wallow with the other monsters, Mr. Rosenstein?”  
   
Crusher didn’t answer for a second. Sam could hear him breathing, and it almost matched his own for raggedness, panic. Then the Director’s hand jerked, Sam choked, and Crushed took a desperate breath. “No,” he said.  
   
The Director’s voice snapped like a whip. “Show me some respect! No,  _what?_ ”   
   
“No,  _sir_.”  
   
The Director twisted Sam’s right nipple while pushing his feet out from under him. It ripped out another sound, and the Director gentled his voice. “You want to be useful, don’t you? To help me make this little piece of shit an obedient, useful monster, don’t you, Mr. Rosenstein?”  
   
Crusher was nodding almost desperately, hands sliding up and down his hips. “Yes,” he gasped. “God, yes. Fuck, yeah, let me—”  
   
The Director slid his fingers beneath Sam’s collar and pulled him closer, pushed him away, made him sway. “Use proper words, Mr. Rosenstein.”  
   
Crusher took a deep breath. “Yes, sir, I want that. Director Campbell,  _sir_.”  
   
The Director smiled again, so that only Sam could see it, and turned around. He glanced, dismissively, at the other man’s groin. “Do you want to take care of that before we continue?”  
   
Crusher nodded. “Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.” He opened his pants and slid in a hand.  
   
The Director smiled tightly and met the guard’s eyes. “You can do that in front of the freak, against him for all I care, but I’d rather not see your dick, Mr. Rosenstein. It doesn’t interest me.”  
   
Crusher paused. “Then what the fuck am I…I mean, would you excuse me, Director, sir, while I jerk off against the little bitch?”  
   
Sam whimpered, low in his throat, at the Director’s expression, even though it was fucking stupid, even though he shouldn’t be looking in that man’s eyes.  
   
“Of course, Mr. Rosenstein.” The Director pushed Sam one last time, and walked to a chair in the corner, turned it so it wasn’t facing Sam, and picked up a book. “Just let me know when you’re done, if you please.”

~*~

When Crusher was done, cleaned up and zipped up, the Director glanced around, put down his book, and walked to the table with his instruments. He ceremoniously handed an electric prod to Crusher. “When I tell you to, Mr. Rosenstein,” he said, and then picked up a riding crop before turning to Sam.

“Let’s see what you know,” the Director said, swinging the riding crop casually in his hand. He brought it up and rested it on Sam’s neck right below the collar. “I have one question for you, 88UI6703. What are you?”

Sam licked his lips. “Sir, I-I don’t know, sir, they’ve a-asked—”

The Director moved so fast that Sam didn’t see the crop move, just felt it slam against his cheek and the pain. Sam jerked and swayed and choked down a cry. It was too damn early in the interrogation to be making noises.

“I don’t care what they’ve asked,” the Director said, “and I’m not looking for some nebulous identification. I want to know what you  _know_  about what you are and what you deserve. Now, let us try this again. I ask, ‘What are you?’ and you answer me, you answer me  _well_ , or I let Mr. Rosenstein use his toy on you. Let me give you a hint. You are a filthy monster.” The Director snapped the crop across his other cheek, hard enough to sting, but probably not even hard enough to leave a welt. “And because you are a filthy monster, you deserve every blow I give you. Now, you try.” He slid the crop down Sam’s chest and rested it gently on his waist, right above the shorts.

“I’m…a freak,” Sam said.

The crop flickered, a butterfly kiss of leather on his waist. “Good. Continue.”

“88IU6703.”

This blow was a little harder. “Decent.”

“A monster.”

“I said that already.” The Director nodded at Crusher, and, grinning, the man brought the prod to the skin of Sam’s shoulder.

He bucked and convulsed as the electricity poured though him, the chains not giving him enough slack to hold himself up while he shook.

“Whore, whore, whore,” he was sobbing when he came down from the pain.

The Director glanced at Crusher. “Would you agree, Mr. Rosenstein that this freak is a whore?”

Crusher grinned. “Fuck yeah…sir.”

The Director nodded, turned, and struck Sam’s shoulder hard enough to cut and draw blood. “That is your punishment for being a whore as well as a monster. What else?”

“C-cocksucker.”

Touch light as a hand on his shoulder.

“Pretty Freak.”

Slightly harder blow to the ribs.

“A...a…” Sam had been called a thousand things, had been told he was so many dirty things, but he tried to forget them, tried to block them from his mind. And now, with pain and distraction, and the swinging and the slowly numbing pressure in his hands, he couldn’t pull them up, couldn’t bring them to his lips.

“I’m sure you know how worthless you are,” the Director said. “Mr. Rosenstein.”

And the shock, the pain, the ripples of agony through his entire frame, came again.

Fucktoy, bitch, slut, dog. They came on and on. And eventually, Sam found it easier to remember them.

~*~

“Enough,” the Director said at last, when Sam had been reduced to practical blindness, stuttering incomprehensibly from pain and stress, shoulders burning from jerking at the chain, wrists one massive bruise from holding his entire weight when his legs gave out. The Director—looking vaguely satisfied, as though a project had just begun to show much more promise—stepped back to the small table with his instruments and began carefully cleaning the head of the crop.

“You see how well he responds?” he said conversationally, even though Crusher looked too absorbed in the way Sam’s body shuddered to really be paying attention. “How thorough and clever he can be? It shows a decent level of intelligence and observation, but really says almost nothing about the freak’s true level of understanding. Even a moderately trained animal can produce rote responses to avoid pain. What my goal here— _our_ goal—is is to instill belief and understanding where previously there has been only memorization. Do you understand me, Mr. Rosenstein?”

Crusher snapped his attention to the Director’s face, clearly struggling to recall the man’s last few words. Then he remembered. “He can’t just say the words,” he answered. “He has to mean them.”

The Director’s mouth quirked in a small smile. “Exactly. Very good, Mr. Rosenstein.”

Sam could do very little but hang and sob. Compared with interrogations he had had in the past, the pain had been relatively light. Even compared with a hard whipping, the damage was minimal.

But it was worse, so much worse, because Sam hadn’t been able to go away. He had to stay there, thinking, searching his mind for every degrading thing he had ever been called, for everything he had ever been told a monster was. He could have just given in, stayed silent, retreated, but the difference in pain between the crop and the prod was so vast that he  _couldn’t_. He couldn’t retreat when there was a way,  _any_ way that the pain could be less.

Usually after a while, the guards and hunters didn’t give a damn what he was saying. They never had more than a handful of questions for him, questions he never had an answer to, and when he degenerated into mindless sounds and begging, it was what they had really wanted from the beginning.

The first time a “No,  _please_ ,” left his lips, the Director paused, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him until his feet left the floor. Sam noted absently, as he gasped from the pressure on his neck, that the Director’s arm didn’t so much as tremble from supporting his weight.

“Did I give you permission to beg?” he asked.

“N-n-no, sir,” Sam whimpered.

“That’s what I thought,” the Director pushed him away and glanced at Crusher. “Twice. Space them out. Long shocks.”

Sam tried desperately after that not to beg, to keep answering the Director’s single, horrible question, but pleading had been trained into him for so long he couldn’t stop  _please don’t_ and  _no, God_  from slipping out. And every time the Director gave his tight little nod, and Crusher jabbed the prod into his skin.

The first time he had said  _God_ —he wasn’t sure he believed in any kind of god, it was just a word that monsters used when they were in pain, though he knew the religious theory about it as well, from his reading—the Director had whipped him hard, three or four times, then dragged him off his feet again.

“God doesn’t exist,” he said. “And he never listens to monsters.” Then he had given Crusher the nod.

Now, even when it seemed nominally over, Sam couldn’t expect anything. Time and again, the Director did things that Sam hadn’t expected, and every time there was pain at the end.

While the Director cleaned the crop, Crusher smiled nastily and shifted the prod from hand to hand, snapping the button sometimes to send electricity shooting between the points. When he stepped closer, Sam tried to brace himself again for the volts.

“Perhaps you should take your annual physical examination early, Mr. Rosenstein.” For the first time that evening, the Director’s voice carried a hint of anger.

Crusher hesitated. “Sir?”

“Or perhaps it is your attention and not your hearing that is lacking.” The Director placed the crop precisely on the little table, drawing attention to every instrument he hadn’t used. “Punishment ends when I determine and begins when I determine. If you have a problem with that, Mr. Rosenstein, I’m sure I can find someone,” his tone said  _something_ , “capable of performing your duties.”

The Director held the guard’s eyes for a long minute, but Crusher glanced down first. “No…sir. Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The Director glanced at the prod in Crusher’s hand. “You can clean that and put it in the charger. It’s in the Administration resource room.”

After one last hungry glance at Sam’s suspended body, Crusher retreated.

The Director smiled when he left the room. “Good boy,” he murmured. Then he walked to Sam and kicked the stool toward his feet. “Stand on that,” he said. “Release your hands.”

He watched expressionlessly while Sam struggled to get his aching feet and his arms—which were almost numb until he moved them, and then began to burn so badly he panted from the pain—moving. It took him three tries before he could get everything working together enough to get his bound hands off the hook.

Sam half collapsed, half sat on the stool. The Director neither moved to catch him nor to avoid his fall. He stared down at Sam, considering something that Sam wasn’t sure was about him. After Sam had caught his breath, he tipped his head toward the corner where Sam’s clothes were piled. “Put your clothes back on.”

Sam stumbled off the stool and to his clothes. His hands shook as he pulled the shirt over his head, and he couldn’t help thinking how it would hurt when he had to pull it off the next morning. Over the night the crop-marks would scab into the fabric, re-tearing the half-healed wounds when he removed the shirt.

It was as though the Director could read his thoughts. But only monsters could do that. “You will shower after every session we have together,” he said. “Not the showers in Administration. They are for human beings exclusively, so as long as you aren’t bleeding all over the floor, I expect you to use the facilities set aside for monsters. Do you have questions?”

Sam hesitated, one pant-leg on, the other halfway up. The Director hadn’t told him to remove the tight underwear, so he hadn’t.

The man’s expression cooled. “88UI, while generally I will expect you to obey, respond and submit without question, complaint, or excessive noise, when I do give you the opportunity to ask questions it is because I will not repeat myself and I expect perfect compliance with my expectations. Whether or not you  _know_ those expectations is, in this instance, completely upon your shoulders. While I consider this the early stages of training—and thus your mistakes will be punished with more leniency than I would otherwise allow—that does not mean you can expect me to cater to your freakish inconsistency, weakness, deception, and malicious guile. I have no intention of placing my species in jeopardy because I ignored a single mistake. Permitting you to ask, even, when I should let you fail and then be punished, is a kindness. If you are too lazy and stupid to make use of my kindness, you will cease to deserve it.”

Sam took a shaky breath. “Sir, sh-showers are usually locked after dinner. H-how do I get access?”

“I have already informed the guards that you are to be permitted to shower. The facilities will then be cleaned for the evening, possibly by you, and then locked.” The Director stopped and waited.

Sam licked his lips, and then choked out the question. “And if I’m bleeding on the floor, sir?”

“Ask me  _clear questions_ , 88UI. Don’t be stupid and sloppy.”

“S-s-sir, how do I sh-shower if I c-cant walk or f-function due to b-bloodloss or injury?”

A small smile. “I will have you cleaned.”

The door, opened, and Crusher re-entered the room. Sam pulled his pants up hastily, and stood, shaking, eyes down.

“Ah, good. I trust that all your equipment is properly put away?” the Director asked.

Crusher glanced at Sam and looked vaguely sullen. He was still hard, visibly stiff against his pants, though Sam had half-expected him to jerk himself off while he was out of the Director’s sight. But all he said was, “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” the Director said. “88UI6703, you will report to me every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. for the foreseeable future. The staff in Administration know that you are expected at this time and will not stop or restrain you, though if you try to abuse that privilege by entering the building without permission at other times, I will have your hands broken. I expect you to report promptly and without fail. I do not believe I need to waste a guard’s time making sure you arrive. If you are more than five minutes early, I will have you beaten. Do not be late. I also expect you to shower beforehand. Do you have any questions?”

“What...what happens, sir, if I ar-r-rive late?”

The Director frowned. “I realize that as an ungrateful piece of shit, you find it hard to appreciate what I am doing for you, but if you waste even a second of my time, I will take that as an indication that you are even more of a lost cause than I already know you to be. Don’t disappoint me.”

Sam made a small noise, Crusher shifted uncomfortably, and the Director smiled slightly and only for a second. Then he turned to the guard, and smiled more naturally. “Mr. Rosenstein, as you have requested this duty, you may naturally arrive at the same time, or earlier, than the freak. I would request that if you are not able to make it, or are going to be late, you inform me as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Crusher nodded. “And thank you, sir, for this…opportunity, sir, and…honor.”

The Director’s mouth quirked. “It’s good to work with a man of your enthusiasm and experience. If you like, you may escort the freak to the showers.”

Crusher’s eyes brightened. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Freak! Come!”

Sam followed Crusher out of the room, and when the guard pushed him to his knees in the showers it was almost a relief, both to be off his shaking feet and to know what he was supposed to do, understanding exactly what was expected and what would get him hurt.

When he could finally stumble into his cot—clothes clean, back and chest still raw—he barely heard the other monsters as they swore at his noise. He just fell into the bed and curled up tight, half on his stomach, half on his side, as though hugging himself would make the pain and nausea go away.

Usually, before he fell asleep, he thought about Dean. Often it wasn’t safe to think about him at any other point in the day, but letting go of every disgusting thing that he had done and that had been done to him and just thinking about Dean’s smile, about his hand on Sam, was part of what kept him going. Some nights he would think, _Maybe he’ll come. Maybe he’ll come next week_ , and it was...probably something he didn’t deserve to think, something he didn’t deserve to hope for, but without that he had no reason to keep going. And he had to keep going, because he knew that anything else would disappoint Dean.

Even after John Winchester had told him Dean was never coming back  _(You’re going to get him killed_ _)_ , Sam had held onto the hope that Dean would still come for him. Because Dean had said he would, and Sam had seen that Dean was so brave, so strong, that he would even stand up to his father.

It had been over a month since Dean had come, and Sam had still hoped, even though a part of him didn't expect Dean to come back, even to fuck him. But tonight, curling the only way he could not to rub his raw wounds, Sam closed his eyes and couldn’t force himself to think about Dean. Because every time he breathed he felt the pain of the crop marks, and he remembered what he was.

Freak, whore, slut, filth, monster.

Dean shouldn’t come back. Dean should stay as far away from Freak Camp and Sam as he possibly could because Sam was worthless, Sam was worse than worthless, and if Dean come to him, he would be contaminated just as surely, he would fall prey to something and it would be Sam’s fault, all Sam’s fault because that’s the kind of monster he was.

Sam knew this. Sam had had it beaten into his worthless monster skin, tonight and nights before, but he still wanted Dean back. Somewhere in his black monster heart, he wanted Dean so badly that if Crusher or anyone else said he could make it happen, that all Sam would have to do was  _anything_ , then Sam would bend over, Sam would beg, and hope that the promise came true, hope that Dean would come back, if only long enough to look at him in disgust, to put a bullet through his head, even though a fast death was too much to hope for when Sam had fucked himself up so badly.

Sam wanted Dean and Sam was an evil monster, a worthless whore, and he couldn’t help but hurt the things he wanted. So he tried not to think about Dean, Dean who wasn’t coming back, Dean who must never know how dirty and disgusting Sam was.

Because thinking about Dean wasn’t safe any more. It just reminded Sam of how much of a monster he really was.

~*~

Lights had been out for an hour when the door swung open. Several monsters jumped in their cots, Kayla included, but it was only Sam who staggered through. Kayla exhaled soundlessly against her blanket. She had seen Victor yank Sam out during dinner, and heard some talk about the  _Director_. The Director almost never personally requested a monster, and it was even rarer that they walked out of Administration after an interview with him.

Sam didn’t look like he was in much more than one piece, though. He had all his limbs, and his face hadn’t been beaten in, but something definably Sam was missing. He paused for a moment with his hand on the closed door before starting slowly forward. He didn’t manage more than a couple steps before stumbling against one of the short cot legs and nearly falling on top of the monster across from him.

Several monsters snarled,  _watch your fucking feet_ , whore! and other insults. The monster he’d almost fallen on struck back, and Sam took it—swaying back dangerously—and then more monsters were growling throughout the barracks, wordless ferocious sounds with clear meaning: shut up and keep down. They all had been whipped two months ago for after-dark altercations, and no one wanted a repetition of the punishment, or for the guards to decide that they deserved something harsher. 

Sam ignored them, when he usually would have snarled soundlessly back, or at least looked to make sure they were all talk and no action. He looked like he barely heard the abuse, like every last ounce of strength in his body was being channeled into staying upright. His hair was damp, and his labored breathing was audible even to Kayla halfway across the room. He lurched on unsteadily on the way to his cot, more than once looking like he was going to tip over in the aisle, but he made it before his knees buckled.

Kayla’s hands unclenched from the edge of her blanket, and she rolled to face the other way. Sam had gotten back to his own cot. Of course he was okay. Roughed up, sure, but he was used to that - more than any other monster still around. He’d be fine in the morning. 

But Sam didn’t get up the next morning.

The buzzer in the corner blared, summoning them outside for roll call. The monsters rolled out of their cots with grunts, jostling each other without vehemence. No one had energy for that in the morning, when the fight wouldn’t influence a monster’s supply of blankets or food.

Kayla had gotten in line for the door, automatically snarling her way into the middle, when she glanced back across the room and saw one unmoving body still in its cot. She was about to think,  _Unlucky bastard_ , when she realized it was Sam.

She dodged out of the line and kept her head down while the other monsters exit. No one looked to her. They didn’t care. Probably thought she was going to try to roll the unconscious monster while he was incapacitated, and didn’t think that being late for roll call would be worth whatever food or trinkets the victim might have. She would have thought the same thing, if it hadn’t been  _Sam_.

Once they were gone, she went to Sam’s cot. His eyes were closed, and he hadn’t stirred in the slightest.

Very slowly, Kayla slid her fingers in front of Sam’s nostrils, not touching skin, but close enough that the small puffs of warm air from his breathing tickled her knuckles.  _Still alive, then_. Satisfied of that at least, she poked him hard in the shoulder.

Sam’s eyes flickered open, and moved over her once, but there was no recognition or focus. Nothing on his face. He still didn’t shift at all. His face was blank, emptier than she had ever seen, even when Crusher had him pinned.

So they’d finally fucked him. By the Director, no less. Kayla wondered if that was anything like getting fucked by Crusher. She had never seen the Director herself, but she’d heard enough, and she’d never believed he had any particular restraint with monsters. 

 _Winchester waited too long_ , she thought to herself, with a touch of the disgust she always felt for hunters, and something a little stronger. Close to the burning rage she felt toward the guards sometimes. She’d always hated Winchester for this. For fucking with Sam in every way besides the one he was supposed to. For breaking through all of Sam’s rules, even the ones he had taught her. For making him hope for something he’d never get. Especially now. 

She watched Sam’s face for a little longer, but it never changed. She couldn’t make him get up, and there wouldn’t be any point anyway if he didn’t do it himself. Survival in Freak Camp was all about will (and luck), and until today she would have said that Sam had the strongest will of anyone she had ever met. Maybe he still did. Maybe his luck had just run out.

She went to roll call and breakfast, and when she snuck back into the barracks afterward with half of a small, dry roll, Sam was in the exact same position. 

Kayla dropped the roll onto his cot, before his face. Sam’s eyes blinked, then flickered to her face. She had just begun to wonder if he knew her yet, when his expression twisted like someone was stabbing a hot iron into his back. The agonized grimace remained fixed on his face for almost a minute, muscles in his back tense and bowed, and then he looked at her again. His eyes were hopeless, sad, resigned, but the knot of anxiety in Kayla’s chest eased, because this was familiar. This was how she knew him.

Sam sat up, bracing himself carefully on the bed. “You shouldn’t have,” he said, nodding at the roll. His voice was hoarse, a little ragged from screams and abuse, but that wasn’t unfamiliar either. “They would have just taken me to SR.”

She shrugged, uneasy. “I’ll eat it, you don’t want it.”

He thought about it. He thought about it a hell of a lot longer than he should have, since he had given her extra food more than once and she knew that he hadn’t eaten very well at dinner the night before either, in addition to missing breakfast. He waited long enough for her stomach to twist up and for her to think, irrationally, about shoving it down his throat so that he would eat, so that he would stay there and not go wherever in his head he went when he didn’t want to feel anything at all, a place she had never quite found.

And then he picked the roll up and ate it in two quick bites. He got up and left the barracks without a word. 

She counted to twenty, so they wouldn’t be seen together, and followed him out.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is our very, very worst chapter. If you can make it through this one, you'll have gotten through the worst; every chapter after this will have at least some glimmer of hope and happiness. But this one doesn't.
> 
> Also, NOTE: next week's chapter will be the last chapter of Part One. After that one's posted, we are going to take a hiatus for a few weeks to prepare to post Part Two - a lot of which we have written (it's already longer than Part one), but we need time to edit and organize and recuperate. Stay tuned!

Sessions with the Director quickly became one of the most predictable and least secure parts of Sam’s life.

Every Wednesday he would walk to the Director’s office and see the man’s cold, thoughtful face. Every Wednesday, they would work to make him an  _obedient_ monster. Mistakes were always punished, and Sam was always a useless piece of shit.

But that was where any semblance of order, structure, and predictability fell apart. Sessions could be anything, from punishments for his mistakes to lessons on hunting lore and how to incapacitate other monsters, to Sam sitting—absolutely silent, absolutely still—in a corner of the office while the Director read reports or signed papers at his desk. Not even pain was constant, though whippings and beatings were common. Sometimes the Director punished him just because he was a monster and that was what he deserved.

Ultimately, the only thing that Sam could rely on was that sessions would take place on Wednesdays and that he wouldn’t be able to rely on anything. Things that had been complimented or ignored one day could have him strung up in the interrogation room on another. Some days nothing bad happened, and those left him just as shaken, just as terrified.

Only the Director was constant. He had taken a personal interest, and he took great pains to tell Sam how very grateful he should be that a busy man, the Director of ASC, a  _real_ human being, was interested in his education. He was always there, explaining why Sam had failed this week; listening, ruler in hand, while Sam fumbled his way through an unfamiliar Latin exorcism; filling out forms, silently, while Crusher shifted from boredom and Sam kept his eyes toward the carpet while really, every second, he was watching the Director’s hands.

Sam came to believe that the Director knew everything. He knew what Sam ate, he knew who he had blown during the week and how well he slept. He knew when Crusher made a face behind his back, and he knew if Sam so much as breathed wrong in his presence.

Part of that, of course, was the cameras placed everywhere in the Director’s office, hidden behind reflective surfaces and in the dark wood paneling. But part of it was just who the Director was.

After two months of training, the Director began assigning Sam as his servant at dinner whenever he stayed over at the camp on a day that wasn’t Wednesday.

“You should be grateful I am allowing you the opportunity to be instructed outside of the usual sessions,” he said. “Indeed, I can only devote time to your situation on Wednesdays because the inevitable bureaucracy of ASC requires that I spend at least one evening here, at FREACS, for paperwork and reflection. Perhaps, with the addition of these dinner hours, you will learn more quickly how to stop being a useless freak.”

Sam was grateful for the extra time with the Director. He was grateful for anything that would make the pain go away.

During the second week of dinners with the Director, Sam knelt at the side of the long conference table, face pointed toward the Director’s feet while his eyes watched for any sign or direction. The Director sat at the head of the table eating messily, a second, empty place setting beside him.

Sam had learned early on that he was not the one sitting at that second place. Not that he really would have expected to eat with the  _Director_ , but the first time he had made even tentative movements toward that second chair, Karl—standing in that day for Crusher—had knocked him to the ground and beaten him until there was barely an inch of his back that wasn’t black and blue the next day.

That first dinner had been horrible, almost as bad as a session, but after he learned what was expected, for once the perfection the Director demanded was possible. As long as he knelt silently, responded instantly to the smallest indication of an order, kept the Director’s water glass full, and brought the courses out in the right order at the right temperature, he was generally safe.

It wouldn’t have been bad at all, except for the hunger. They had put the camp on half-rations again, something about negative behavior, just when Sam had hit another one of his almost unnatural growth spurts. Two pieces of bread and one bowl of soup—more water than broth—left him feeling hollowed out and desperate, like his body was consuming everything inside him—organs, bones, muscles—so that it could shoot upward. Sometimes he thought his body hoped he could escape Freak Camp if he could just get tall enough to reach past the fence.

Worst of all, when the Director was done with his meal—for a painfully careful, precise man, he ate like a monster, scraps everywhere, bits of food scattered across the napkin he tucked fastidiously into the top of his shirt—he would calmly dump everything he didn’t eat straight in the garbage bag Sam brought him. Every time, it hurt to see delicacies like duck, potato, and vegetables that he couldn’t name—but which scented the air with flavors he could just barely imagine—dumped in a featureless plastic bag.

This time the Director glanced at him between bites. It made Sam’s mouth dry with fear, but he didn’t move.

“Hungry?” the Director asked.

Sam froze. There was no good answer to that. But that didn’t mean he could lie. The Director would know, and that would be punished, too. “Yes, sir.”

The Director smiled, and another piece of meat fell off his fork and onto the table beside his plate. “’The scraps from the children’s dinner,” he murmured. Then he deliberately brushed the meat off the table and onto the floor. He met Sam’s eyes—before Sam could wildly look away. “If you are hungry, eat.”

Cautiously, feeling the trick and not sure when or how it would appear, Sam reached forward. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew it, but his body could  _not_ look at that scrap and walk away.

When his fingers were over the meat, the Director kicked him in the head.

Sam fell away, pretending to be hit harder than he was, even though the Director probably knew to the ounce of pressure how hard he had actually kicked him. Sam tried to curl up to protect his head and keep his eyes watching the Director at the same time, waiting for the next blow, but the Director didn’t even look angry. “Eat it properly,” he said, “for what you are.”

Sam understood what he meant almost immediately. Some piece deep inside him was terrified at how easy it was to understand. But that was not the part of him that kept him alive.  _It’s true, you are_ , he thought.  _Just do it._

Then he leaned forward and picked the meat off the floor with his teeth. When he looked up, the Director was smiling. He deliberately pushed another piece of food off the table.

“Good boy,” he said. “Smart boy.”

That Wednesday, the Director let Crusher use the prod because Sam had not thanked him for the meal.

~*~

Sessions were generally just under two hours, but even that wasn’t certain. They could vary wildly, from the one time that the session had lasted exactly long enough for Sam to perfectly recite a Latin exorcism from memory—he knew he had done it right because the demon chained in the Director’s interrogation room had writhed, flowed out of its host’s mouth, and vanished through the drain—to one night Sam tried to forget, when the session had gone past midnight, and Crusher had hosed him down in the interrogation room instead of Sam trying to make it to the showers.

Every Wednesday, Sam learned he had failed to live up to the Director’s expectations that week, studied how they could work together to make Sam more than a useless monster—“ _Almost not good enough for the bullet to put you down_ ”—and what exactly his punishments would be. Sometimes lessons came before pain, sometimes after, sometimes during, and the lessons ranged from general knowledge of North American geography and supernatural weaknesses to developing skills like Latin recitation and knife moves.

Sam absorbed the lessons quickly, because his memory, which had always been good, became a survival skill. He couldn’t hesitate, he couldn’t be distracted. He had to correctly interpret every single cue the Director had taught him and perform whatever task he was given quickly and without error, or he would receive one of the Director’s punishments, which were unlike and subtly worse than any interrogation he’d endured before he met the Director.

If Sam were lucky, the Director would give him the instructions, step by step, and let him ask questions to clarify the point. Other times, he would rattle off a long list of instructions, often involving complex activities. Mistakes or hesitations were punished. The Director showed him a picture of a devil’s trap once for exactly ten seconds, then told him to reproduce it in chalk on the floor. He watched Sam fumble over the details, then made him repeat each piece until he got it right, this time as Crusher applied hot irons to the soles of his feet.

The next week, Sam drew it perfectly. And then he was given another task.

After three months of Wednesdays, when Sam walked in at the Director’s curt “Enter,” there was another man sitting at the table across from the Director, between Sam and Crusher. The man had a beer and the remains of a good meal in front of him—Sam felt his stomach twist a little in hunger, but breakfast had been edible, and soon enough he wouldn’t want anything in his stomach anyway—while the Director drank his carefully prepared tea.

“Sirs,” Sam said softly, then walked to his usual pre-session place at the side of the door. He didn’t know if this was a test or if their discussion was going to be delayed, but it was best to behave as though it were a test. If it wasn’t yet, the Director could make it one at any time.

Sam was sure the Director drank beer and harder alcohol when he was at home—he had mentioned it once or twice—but Sam had never seen him drink anything but tea or water. The Director believed that any kind of influence while working intimately with monsters was tantamount to blinding the entire support network and making oneself the weakest link in any given defensive or offensive unit. The one time a guard came drunk to his post—and brought a gallon of rotgut moonshine to pass around to the other guards and a couple “special” monsters—the man had been whipped publicly during an assembly.

The stranger looked Sam up and down and snorted. He was a ratty-looking man, but his suit was of very high quality and the rings on his fingers flashed gold. “So, this is the monster you were telling me about?” he asked dubiously. “So well trained you could snap and he’d do anything you wanted?”

The Director smiled calmly. Sam saw the expression out of his peripheral vision, but kept his eyes on the Director’s hands. While vocal commands were still commands, the Director was often too busy to waste time speaking to filth like Sam when a gesture could suffice. Because Sam was watching his hands, he saw the two-fingered twitch, and knelt gracefully.

The stranger had been sneering—Sam wondered distantly how he had the balls to sneer at the Director; even guards who called him a tee-totalling prude were very careful to say it behind his back and in hushed, bitter voices (so far behind his back, indeed, that they wouldn’t even say it in front of Sam anymore, afraid he might spill something during an interrogation that would get them a private session of their own)—but now his head snapped to Sam, and then turned back to the Director.

“Did you tell him to do that?” he asked.

“Yes,” the Director said. “88UI6703 is very bright, for a freak.”

“Make him…make him do something else.”

Sam saw the  _come here_  flick, but not coupled with slight raise that would mean  _get up first_ , so he crawled. He crawled slowly but steadily on his hands and knees and kept his head down until he was about two feet away from the Director and then stopped. That was as close as he deserved to come to a real without express permission.

He didn’t look at the stranger’s face, but he could hear the amazement and something more in his voice. Sam let his eyes flicker sideways to where Crusher stood, one hand holding a cutting whip, the other clenched at his side. Crusher was, predictably, hard, and he had the familiar brutal lust in his eyes.

 _Maybe I can get a sandwich out of him later_ , Sam thought idly, before returning his eyes to the floor.

“How are you doing that?” the stranger asked. “When you said you were training the freaks to be useful, I thought you were insane, Jonah, just insane, but that…that was something…my wife’s dog doesn’t obey like that, and she’s taken it to more schools than a Ph.D dropout.”

“He’s a freak, Senator,” the Director answered dryly. “Much as I hate to admit it, he’s quite a bit smarter than a dog. I use hand motions when I don’t want to bother vocalizing basic instructions. Granted, this one has taken to the training rather better than most, but just kneeling and crawling is not that impressive. He can do quite a bit more than that, can’t he, Mr. Rosenstein?”

Crusher jerked in a breath and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Pre—the freak’s…good at a lot of things, sir.”

“What—“ The senator put down his beer. “What kinds of things?”

He seemed to have trouble breathing as well. Of all the men in the room, only the Director was completely calm, completely placid. Sam couldn’t stop his heartrate from picking up. He doubted the senator cared about geological formations in the American southwest.

The Director thought for a second, eyes steady on his guest, before they flickered to Crusher, moved to Sam, and then back. "By all reports, he's quite skilled with his mouth. Would you like to see for yourself, Senator?”

“His…mouth? You mean…?” The stranger stopped and wiped his greasy fingers on the napkin on his lap.

“Quite so,” the Director said. “Mr. Rosenstein can corroborate.”

“Yeah,” Crusher said. “He’s…yeah. I…yeah. Sir.”

“Would you be interested, Senator?” the Director asked, reaching for the teapot and pouring himself a second cup.

The man stared.

“Sir,” Crusher said, moving forward slightly. “If Pr—if the freak’s sucking him off, can I—“

“No, Mr. Rosenstein.” The Director’s tone made Sam wince, grateful that it wasn’t directed toward him. “No, you may not.”

“But, sir.”

The Director turned, actually turned in his chair, to fix his steel gray eyes on the guard. “You will control yourself and do your job, Mr. Rosenstein, or you will leave this room, do you understand?” His tone was crisp and cutting.

The guard straightened. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you staying, or should you get your…relief before this continues?”

Crusher glanced at Sam. “I’m staying, sir.”

“And I want that,” said the senator, breaking in. “I want…”

The Director smiled into his tea. “Yes, I thought you might.” He jerked his head at Sam. “Blow him.”

Sam moved. He crawled to the stranger, who was watching him in horrified, aroused fascination. Sam opened the man’s fly and took the man’s mostly hard dick into his mouth without hesitation. It was fairly easy from there. The man had a death grip on the arms of his chair and couldn’t seem to do anything but make sharp, high-pitched whines while Sam worked him with his mouth and bobbed with the involuntary thrust of his hips.

When the senator came, Sam swallowed him. When he practically collapsed into his chair, for lack of further instructions, Sam lapped at his cock for another second and then slid back to the required couple of feet.

“Oh. My. God,” the senator said, shakily.

“I take it he performed well?” The Director sipped his tea while Sam tried to get the taste out of his mouth without making any movement that would call attention to what he was doing. He tried to swallow everything down so that his mouth could just taste like saliva again, but it was always hard. In Head Alley at least he could spit and hack after the guards were away.

“Fuck,” the man said.

“You can help me, then, with your opinion,” the Director said. “Did he perform well enough that I should waive the usual punishment for touching a real human being without his permission?”

Sam froze, completely unable to breathe, to expand his ribcage, to feel anything beneath the pounding in his ears. How could he have been so stupid? There was always a test, always more beneath the Director’s commands, and he should have fucking known better than to assume that it would be all right just because he was clearly not the only one the Director was training today.

Touching a real without explicit permission or orders, even when they had said yes to the blow job, even when they clearly wanted it, or were touching him, was equivalent to hitting a guard. Monsters routinely got gang-fucked or lost limbs or went to Special Research—or all three—for even implying that they were going to fight back.

It took all his self-control not to panic, not to throw himself on his stomach and crawl to the Director’s chair begging apologies, not to run right there and hope that Crusher accidentally killed him. Because this too was a test, and Crusher would never kill him, would never step that far out of line unless the Director explicitly said he could.

And begging wouldn’t help. Never had helped unless that was what the Director had told him to do. Then, sometimes, if he did it well enough, if he repeated enough of what the Director had told him about what an abomination he was, about how much he deserved the pain, if he created new ways to say that he was sorry, then the Director would have the pain stop because he understood his lessons.

But he had to really  _understand_. He couldn’t just say the words and expect any kind of consideration.

“He…he had to ask permission?” the senator asked.

“Of course,” the Director said. “He’s just a freak. You could have made him beg to have your cock in his mouth, or told him exactly what he should do with his tongue against your head, or come onto his face, if you’d like.”

The senator took a hard breath, and Sam could see his cock twitching again, starting to rise. “Maybe…maybe next time?” he asked. “Next time I could…”

The Director smiled. “Yes, next time. I’m still waiting for your opinion on the punishment.”

“I think he was good enough that this time…this time…”

“This time only,” the Director said smoothly. “That sounds reasonable. But a bit too merciful. Would you mind terribly if I altered that a bit, disciplined him lightly?”

The senator shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I shall then.” The Director looked at Sam. “Tonight you will stay where I put you, remain silent unless I speak to you, as though you had been bound and gagged. If you move from where I put you, if you make an undue amount of noise…you will be restrained and I will do what is necessary to educate you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said.

The Director smiled at him, his calmest, most satisfied, most pleased smile, and then turned to the senator whose cock was already half hard and who was watching Sam’s mouth with the same hunger he saw in the guards’ eyes when they watched his ass.

“Next time you come to this facility to threaten to cut ASC funding, Senator, I want you to remember two things,” he said. “One,” he gestured at Sam, “the good work we do controlling, confining and training supernaturals to useful tasks -- and two,” he gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, “that I have video of you with your cock down a monster’s throat, and clearly enjoying it.”

Every corner in Freak Camp had its own video camera. Sam knew that the ones in the Director’s offices were strictly private.

 _Stupid man, even if he is a real_ , he thought as the senator gaped at the Director, thinly disguised terror in his eyes.  _Fighting only gets you hurt._

~*~

Sam knelt where he had been told in the round, cement-floored interrogation room with the other monster, and gritted his teeth together while the Director worked his back with the riding crop. It didn’t really hurt that much—the Director admitted he had done very little to deserve pain that week—but he wanted to be ready to make no sound in case the Director decided to do something different without warning him.

Much as he hated the ball gag always sliding halfway down his throat—he’d had worse down his throat, but usually blowing the guards was over with quickly—he almost missed it. The ball in his mouth nicely limited the sounds he was  _capable_  of making, not just the ones he was permitted to make, and gave him something to bite down on other than his own tongue.

The Director spoke as he whipped him, trying to goad Sam into hitting him, but that was all just white noise to Sam beneath the familiar feel of the crop against his skin. He  _knew_  he was a coward, knew he would never have the suicidal bravery nor the evil vindictiveness required to strike the Director. Just the thought made Sam shiver a little harder under the next stroke; _it would never fucking work._  If anything, he was confused about why the Director was even suggesting it. Usually during beatings the Director calmly explained what he had done wrong, what Sam could have done differently to avoid the current pain—if he wasn’t such a fucking stupid monster that couldn’t really stop himself from doing stupid things—but most of all, how Sam must labor incessantly not to be a waste of the resources it took to keep him alive.

Mostly, Sam considered that white noise as well, even when he believed it. But he thought it made a lot more sense than what the Director was saying now.

The whip paused, and the Director used it to tilt his head up. Sam obediently looked at him but not in his eyes.

“You know your place,” he said, and Sam shivered under the mild satisfaction in his voice. “Under my whip, my voice, my control. “ He turned away, sliding the whip under Sam’s chin like a parting caress, and looked at the other monster, a shapeshifter currently wearing the body of a middle-aged man. “Now what about you?”

The shifter was bound but not gagged, and the cords around his wrists were just thin nylon and loosely tied, no real restraint for a monster of his type. Sam hated those thin cords (they held him just fine), much preferring the wide metal cuffs, even though the unpadded ones chafed, because they more widely distributed pressure. Even when his wrists were bruised and raw from the metal bands after a particularly enthusiastic interrogation, Sam preferred them to the feeling that he was cutting off his own hands every time he couldn’t stop writhing against his bonds.

The Director set the crop against the other monster’s shoulder. “I asked you a question, freak. Are you a good little dog, too? Are you going to lick my boots and Mr. Rosenstein's cock if I tell you to? Are you going to roll over and beg too?”

Sam held still even after the cock comment, let himself step mentally away from the interrogation—was it really an interrogation if no one asked questions? At least not questions they expected to be answered?—in the way he had learned since the Director had taken an interest in his life. No longer was it safe to blank out, to withdraw completely from what was being done to and with him. He had to be thinking and responding, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about things other than his personal terror, couldn’t analyze the blood splatters on the walls or think about the anomalies in the interrogation.

Because there was something very off about the whole night, and Sam began carefully breaking the situation down so that he could stop his heart from beating wildly in his chest, terrified of what was coming next.

For one, the Director was handling the whip himself, which he rarely did. He preferred to observe and give quiet instructions to whichever guard was assisting. But tonight he flicked the lash, and the silver-studded head left little bloody welts across the shifter’s skin. “Just going to lie there, aren’t you, freak?” the Director said calmly. “Good. Take it like the dog you are.”

The shifter looked enraged, and his hands twisted against the nylon.  _Just do what he says_ , Sam thought dully. _Whatever you think you can try, it won’t work._

Whatever kind of monster Sam was, telepathy was not one of his abilities.

Probably the shifter thought that he had the upper hand, when the Director walked past him and turned slightly, as though distracted by something. Crusher was against the far wall, and the man— _monster_ , Sam corrected himself—took his opportunity.

Sam could have told him that the Director’s attention had never left him. He knew, after five months, exactly when the Director’s eyes were finally off him, and it was very very rare.

With a roar, the shifter wrenched his hands out of the nylon and lunged for the Director’s throat.

In a move that he had been showing Sam—again and again with Sam flying against the wall until the movement was beaten into his bones—the Director caught the shifter’s charge, threw him into the wall, and punched him hard in the throat, leading with the silver rings on his right hand. In that moment, the placid, venom-voiced real became the fit, lean, deadly hunter he had been before taking over ASC and FREACS—and still was, beneath the illusion of age and deskwork.

The Director stepped back, a slight smile on his face, barely breathing hard, while the monster choked. “Mr. Rosenstein,” he said, “I think the dog just hit me. That’s a bad idea. Cut that thought into its skin, please, somewhere it will remember it.”

Crusher grinned and snapped out a sharp, silver knife. “Yes, sir.”

Sam breathed very carefully, looking down at the floor. He didn’t think the pain would be his any more, but he did not want to be there, he did not want—

“Watch,” the Director said, and Sam turned his head toward where Crusher was crouching to pin the shifter to the wall, to get a better angle for his knife. He could watch Crusher’s back, maybe, the flex of his wrists, and not actually have to see what was ripping the noises out of the shapeshifter’s mouth.

The screams began like any normal, human scream, and quickly became high-pitched and staccato. They stayed like that, more like a wounded animal than a human being, until the shapeshifter’s voice wore out and he had almost no visible skin left.

Sam was familiar with the raspy, broken whimpers the shifter was making. He had made them himself more than once, but it had never taken so little time. Then again, he supposed that Crusher had never been allowed to cut his skin off.

He felt almost nothing, because he couldn’t afford that. The shifter hadn’t been one of the worst—he’d grabbed for Kayla’s food once, but she had shoved her fist down his throat, and he hadn’t bothered her again—but he also wasn’t a friend. He was just  _there_.

When Crusher cut the shifter’s throat—with an iron knife, just to cut the sounds—the Director got up from the chair where he had been reading a grimoire. He looked down at the shredded, weakly twitching body of the shapeshifter and then glanced at Crusher.

“Perhaps a little too thorough, Mr. Rosenstein,” he said. “Almost not worth dragging it to Special Research.”

“I could…” Crusher began, reaching for his silver knife, but the Director held up his hand.

“Not worth your time,” he said. He glanced at Sam and beckoned with a flick of his fingers.

Sam stood as quickly as he could with his knees half-locked from being in that one position on the cold floor through the beating and the torture— _someone else tonight, thank God_ , he thought. Stumbling slightly, he walked to where the Director waited just out of the shifter’s reach.

The Director was not a particularly tall man, and Sam always hunched instinctively just to make very sure that he would not seem greater than him.

The Director took a silver blade out of his belt—he hadn’t even bothered to reach for it when the shifter attacked him, that confident about his own ability—and threw it on the floor by the half-dead monster. “Kill it,” he said.

Sam moved in, scooped up the knife, and cut the shapeshifter’s throat as deep and as fast as he could, like he had been taught, beaten more than once because the Director found the jerk of his hands through the air, cutting an imaginary throat with an imaginary knife, unsatisfactory. Then he stabbed down into the heart for good measure. When he was done, he cleaned the knife carefully on his pants before placing it exactly where the Director had thrown it and returning to his place at the Director’s side.

The gray-eyed man smiled and exchanged a glance with Crusher that Sam couldn’t interpret. Sam winced slightly when the Director’s hand came up to touch the back of his head. “Did you enjoy it? You’re a monster, so I hope you enjoyed it. At least you’ve finally learned your lessons on how to use the knife correctly.”

For the first time, Sam felt a little sick. He’d felt nothing at all when he slit the other monster’s throat, not even the adrenaline he usually felt when he had to defend himself. It had been a mercy when he pushed the knife through the already fusing, healing flesh; if he felt anything, it was dim envy like a deep, throbbing bruise. But now he wondered if it were true, if he should have liked it. What would the Director do because he had not shown his enjoyment enough?

 _Dean wouldn’t want you to be a monster and hurt people_ , a little voice inside him whispered.

He told it to shut the fuck up and hoped the Director hadn’t seen the jump in his jaw when he couldn’t shut down the thought entirely. It had been five months, five long months, since Dean had come to see him. Never before had he stayed away longer than two, and that had been when they were children, before he could drive himself to camp, and the one time that Dean had been suspended. Five months with the Director telling him every Wednesday, and often other days of the week, how little he deserved even hope, even the thought he might glimpse Dean again. A monster like him didn’t deserve Dean Winchester in his life in any capacity. He was a selfish, horrible monster for ever wanting that.

 _Probably Dean knows what a worthless dog you are_ , he told himself.  _Probably that’s why he’s not coming back. Knows he’s safer and better without you._

What he had to do now was survive—or not survive—what the Director would do to him for backsliding into pointless, undeserved hope.

But the Director just patted him on the head, smiling that same, pleased smile. “Good boy,” he said. “Put the body on the corpse cart, scrub the floor and yourself.”

Sam moved quickly, dragging the shifter to the side of the interrogation room where the cart waited, then getting the harsh soap and water from the wall tap. The soap stung his hands as he ground the blood out of the concrete with a stiff bristled brush, and then burned his back when he dumped the water over his head and scrubbed the welts the crop had left— _such light injuries tonight_ —with his shirt.

When he was done, Crusher tossed him a new shirt and pants, and Sam stripped and put the old clothing, neatly folded, on the cart below the body. He tried hard while he took off his pants not to care how close Crusher stood and how his breathing picked up.

When he was done, Sam returned to the same position before the Director.

The man looked him over from head to toe and then glanced at the damp floor, as though he hadn’t been watching the entire process carefully and making occasional slight movements with his crop when he thought that Sam could improve or had been about to miss a blood splatter.

There had been very few of those little movements. Sam was thorough and careful.

“Good enough,” he said. “Now get out of my sight.”

Sam bowed slightly and went swiftly, but without hurry, from the chamber, closing the door gently on his way out. When he felt the door latch softly under his hand, he let out a shaky breath and walked as fast as he could without actually running out of Administration. He had survived another Wednesday.

~*~

Crusher ran a hand over his groin, but stopped when the Director looked at him with unconcealed revulsion.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, straightening.

“Disgusting,” the Director said. “If he weren’t a freak, he’d be younger than my niece. Control yourself, Mr. Rosenstein, or I will.”

Crusher scowled. “You don’t seem to mind during interrogations.” Then he took a good look at the Director’s face, swallowed carefully and added: “Sir.”

The Director’s face flickered with a smile. “Well, Dean Winchester seems to share your perversions, so when it is convenient—and you gentlemen are clearly so willing to instruct—I take all steps to ensure that 88UI6703 is as satisfactory as possible in every way. I may not approve of his sexual preferences, but he is Mary’s son and already a hunter worthy of the name.” The smile faded, but the sincerity still in his voice was chilling. “And that’s really all that matters.” He looked at Crusher again. “You may go now, Mr. Rosenstein.”

If the guard noticed how the Director had used the same tone on him as he had used on the freak, he gave no sign. “Yes, sir,” he said, and left.

~*~

The Director took a last bite of his steak, removed the gravy-stained napkin from his neck, and leaned back in satisfaction. “The cook at FREACS is truly excellent,” he said. “I’m surprised he’s not working for some stuff-shirted bureaucrat in Washington, the things he can do with a basic steak.”

He wasn’t talking to Sam, and thus wouldn’t expect a response. Sam, on his knees beside the conference table, kept his eyes locked on the area of the Director’s hands, his breathing perfectly even, his expression empty but alert, and did his best not to smell the food, not to look at it, not to think about it. God, he hadn’t eaten more than stale bread and water—most days not even that—in a week and a half.

And then his stomach growled.

He couldn’t stop his breath from hitching at the sudden surge of terror.  _Wait wait wait,_  he told himself, fingernails digging into his palms to give himself a focus for the panic. Moving now would just make it worse. Begging before he was given permission would just make it  _worse worse worse._

When the Director pushed his plate over the side of the table, crashing the cheap ceramic against the wooden floor beneath the conference table and scattering food everywhere, Sam couldn’t stop himself from jerking. But he managed to make no sound.

The Director sat back. "Clean it up...any way you want. As long as you remember what you are."

Sam crawled forward, head down, words spilling off his lips automatically, requiring disturbingly little conscious thought anymore. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for this food, sir.” And then he lowered his mouth to the steak bits and lukewarm potatoes and began to eat as quickly as he could without making any noise.

He flinched involuntarily when he felt the Director’s hand in his hair, but the Director made the little sound that meant Sam should continue doing exactly what he had been doing, so he continued eating, expecting any second for the Director to jerk his head up or kick him away. But there was no pain and no attack. Instead he ate, while the Director’s hand stroked his head the way another man might pet a dog.

~*~

Sam was exhausted. Hollowed out, hungry and exhausted from not enough sleep and not enough food. Wednesday hadn’t been bad, as far as Wednesdays went, but it was always dangerous to sleep, to let his guard down even a little bit on Thursdays, even when he knew Kayla would watch his back, at least as far as making noise if someone tried to sneak around behind him. And now it was Friday, and he was kneeling silently against the wall, eyes locked on the Director’s hands as he had his dinner.

Crusher stood in the corner, slowly smacking his club into his gloved hand while he watched Sam.

After about ten minutes of the steady _slap, slap, slap_ , the Director put down his fork and turned to Crusher, mouth pursed in irritation.

“Would you stop doing that?” he snapped. “I’m having dinner. Water.” That last was for Sam. Quickly, silently, he rose, got the pitcher of clear, filtered ice-water from the counter-top and refilled the Director’s glass. The water glass, not the wine glass that had remained unused. He concentrated hard on not letting his exhaustion affect his hand's steadiness. He couldn’t let a single drop spill.

“I don’t like it, sir,” Crusher said.

If the Director had looked at Sam that way, he would have been shaking, but Crusher just looked uneasy. “You are under no obligation to guard me, Mr. Rosenstein,” the Director said.

“Not that, sir.” Crusher jerked his head at Sam. “It’s just…you’ve said the progress has been good, but the little freak’s still…”

“An ass-virgin?”

“Unidentified, sir.”

The sneer on the Director’s face faded until he looked thoughtful. “True.” He looked at Sam, and even though he didn’t look nearly as irritated as he had, Sam couldn’t stop the slight tremors from moving through his hands. “What did you have in mind? Bear in mind the restrictions I have put in place.”

Crusher shrugged, trying to look casual, but Sam could see how the muscles had tensed in his arms and how he was starting to get a hard-on. “Just a little rough interrogation, sir,” he said. “One more, just to be sure the freak’s not hiding something nasty behind that pretty face.”

The Director thought. Sam found himself counting every soft click of the great clock in the office, trying to bring his heartbeat down to that pace. Because if he let it race, if he they saw the way the blood pounded in his face, if they knew he knew how bad it could go….

“I think that’s reasonable,” the Director said, slowly. “But remember the restrictions.”

Crusher grinned, and Sam lost control of his breathing, control of his pulse. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I can do that, sir.”

~*~

Sam was no stranger to “rough” interrogations. He still had them once in a while when the guards, the Director, or the ASC wanted to show a new hunter some weapon they had perfected, the prods, the techniques that worked best. Granted, mostly he had Wednesdays, the inevitable progression of Wednesdays—so often worse than interrogations—but it wasn’t like he had forgotten what it was like when they would tie him to a chair and try to cut the truth out of—or into—him.

But they hadn’t asked what kind of freak he was in a hell of a long time. He guessed that when he was Winchester’s pet monster, or the guards’ whore, or the Director’s project, it didn’t really matter what kind of freak he was.

This time it was different. Terrifyingly different. There were five or seven—Sam couldn’t keep track, they seemed to change, and they kept a blindfold on him half the time—and they changed, passed him around, each took a turn doing whatever they could to him, anything that wouldn’t mark him up too bad, lose him a limb, or scar his face.

“What are you, Pretty Freak?” Crusher purred in his ear while he bent his wrist backward almost to the breaking point and slid his other hand down to Sam’s crotch. “Come on, flash me some teeth, throw me across the room, hit me with a little mojo. I can take it. You know you want it.”

 _If I could, if I could, if I could_ , Sam thought, the pain making his vision go white and snowy around the edges as Crusher’s hands went  _everywhere_.

When the blindfold went on—and the muzzle that kept his mouth open so he couldn’t bite down, even by accident—they started pushing him to his knees and beating him while he sucked them off. They still asked the question—voices he knew, voices he didn’t—taunting him to  _show them he was a freak_  even though at that point he didn’t think they thought that he had anything special.

If he had any gift, any power, he wished it would come now. He wished he could kill them all. Or that it could be over faster. Sometimes through the hours he just wanted it to be over, all over, that they'd push him past the point of feeling anything ever again and there would be nothing left to do but put him in the incinerator.

“Maybe he’s a fuck-freak,” Mark grunted as he thrust. “Not good for anything but—God—tongue— _fuck_ _!_ ”

“Told you,” Victor said, sliding his crowbar slowly up Sam’s chest.

“Yeah,” Mark panted. “Well, exaggeration, you know.  _Fuck_. You made me a monster-fucker.”

“First time?” Sam didn’t know that voice.

“First time like this. Fucking Winchester. No wonder.”

Crusher. “That’s what they all say.”

And then they laughed.

By the time they got to waterboarding, Sam wasn’t sure how he was still breathing. They had tried not to hit him hard enough to break anything, just to leave bruises everywhere, deep bone-bruises that made it hurt to move even when they weren’t hitting him, but he was pretty sure he had a couple cracked ribs. And it was hard, so hard when they shoved his head into a dirty bucket, or slid the hose directly into his mouth, to wait until there was air to fill his aching lungs.

 _Why don’t you just fucking breathe_ , the little voice that wasn’t numb and far away said. _It would be so easy. They would never notice. You might die anyway._

And that lit up the old associations. Dean. He had to stay alive, he had to keep gasping air through his abraded throat, raw from screaming and choking on them. Because Dean had promised, and even though Sam didn’t think he was coming back, knew he didn’t deserve Dean to come back, he couldn’t give up. That would be like saying he didn’t believe in Dean.

He knew that Dean had done his best. Sam was just too hopeless for even Dean’s best to be enough.

He was weeping, choking, breaking down, the thin numb edges in his mind dissolving and sliding toward blessed unconsciousness and even more blessed death  _(I’m sorry, Dean. I tried, really did, but I can’t stop them. If they don’t stop…_ ) when Crusher pulled his head close.

“I can stop it,” he said, hand kneading the sluggishly bleeding skin of Sam’s shoulder. “I can make it all end.”

Sam looked at him. It was just a movement of his eyes—motor function seemed to have cut out a while ago, and they had just been passing him back and forth like a rag doll—but Crusher saw. He leaned so close that Sam could feel his hot breath on his ear, could smell the Tabasco sauce on his breath.

“Let me fuck you,” he breathed. “Just say yes, freak, and we’ll all stop. He can’t touch me if you say yes.”

Sam stared. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He thought he was past fear. Fear had slid away hours ago into blankness, into nothing at all. But this was a rush of pure terror, of the sudden need to fight, to stop, to say No, no, no. But he couldn’t move his mouth quite right ( _fuck, did they break his jaw?_ ) and all he could think was  _No, no, no, that’s Dean’s, only Dean fuck fuck no no no._

Somehow, he managed the word, the only word he wanted. “No.”

Crusher snarled into his face, his hand tightening around Sam’s throat before he threw him back into another guard’s arms.

“Dump him again,” he said. “He can’t even fucking answer a question right.”

And every time after that Sam still answered ‘no’. Until he couldn’t even hear the questions any more.

~*~

When Sam got his eyes open and the bright infirmary room finally came into focus, he had no idea who the gray-clothed monster sitting in the chair, staring at him, was. Then he remembered Kayla had taken on another new, uglier face recently.

"I heard them say you were as dumb as a dog," she said, monotone voice as flat as ever. "But it's not true. You're even dumber."

Sam blinked twice, wondering if this would make any sense if he hadn't been kicked in the head so many times.

She continued to stare at him, face as expressionless as the blank white wall behind her. Maybe shapeshifters had to get used to showing emotion on new faces, or maybe this was just Kayla. She went on at last. "Even dogs know when to roll over and die. Every stupid animal does. Why don't you, Sam?"

He closed his eyes, but she kept talking.

"You stupid—lucky— _stupid_ son of a bitch. If they gave me just one chance, I'd've jumped on it. I'd've gone through the incinerator by now, whoosh, where none of them could ever touch me again. Why don't  _you_ , Sam? Is it true, then, do you  _like_  what they do to you?"

At that, Sam mustered what was left of his voice, shredded from screams. "No." It hurt, coming out.

" _Then why don't you die, you stupid whore!_ " Kayla didn't raise her voice, but it came out in a furious, contorted hiss. That might have been emotion, he thought distantly. "Give up. Just give up already. You've been here longer than any of us, it's time for you to  _go_."

Sam shook his head, eyes still closed.

Now Kayla's voice rose in pitch, though still kept low enough that none of the reals that worked in the infirmary would hear. "Why? Why the fuck  _not?_  What is  _wrong_ with you?" He offered no answer, and after a moment her voice dropped back down to the monotone. "It's that hunter boy, isn't it. You're waiting for him. Because he said—"

Sam didn't answer. Didn't move.

There was silence, and then Kayla made a strange sound, almost like a cough. It might have been her attempt at a laugh. Then her chair legs squeaked back as she stood up. "You really are dumb as shit. He's fucking you over like every other hunter, like every other real.  _He's not coming for you, Sam_. He'd probably be laughing at you right now if he knew how much you believed him."

Sam rolled over, away from her, even though his ribs and head seemed about to split open. "Go away, Kayla."

After a moment, he heard soft footsteps across the floor and the window open and shut.

 _He promised. Dean promised. And he's always followed through on his promises_. Sam had no belief that he would survive until Dean came for him - not that Dean was coming for him anymore. If he was going to be honest with himself, he hoped with more faith for his own death than for Dean.

He wouldn’t court death. He wouldn’t ask them for it. He wouldn’t be the one that broke Dean’s promise. But he could feel death coming for him anyway -- more surely, more truly, than Dean’s promise had ever been.

He didn’t even have the strength to hate himself for giving up.

~*~

When Sam limped into the Director’s office, head down, the Director was as he always was, a cool, cold-eyed presence. But there was a more careful look in his eye.

The guard was new. New to Freak Camp, not just to the Director’s sessions. Sam looked at him a little longer than he should have. It hurt to move, hurt to breathe sometimes, and that slowed his reaction times, slowed them dangerously. He knew he had to ignore the pain, get himself up to speed—they wouldn’t possibly keep him in the infirmary that much longer, he didn’t have that kind of hope—but it was so hard.

The Director saw the look. He saw everything. Sam didn’t have the energy to even be afraid. He had felt numb since the interrogation. Blank. He was torn between being terrified of this hollow feeling and hoping that it just stayed until he died. It wouldn’t be that long now, not with how damn little he could care about his own self-preservation.

“Mr. Rosenstein is on suspension, as is Mr. Todd. Though I suspect for this stunt Mr. Rosenstein will be out for a good bit longer, and he will not be rejoining us for our little conversations.” The Director smiled, but it was not a happy smile. Sam wasn’t sure what was going on, but he didn’t think that it really had that much to do with him. “He did not have proper authorization for the damage he inflicted.” 

The Director was pissed, but not at Sam. Sam wondered if it would still hurt.

But instead of telling Sam how he had fucked up that week (and the week before, when he had been in the infirmary) the Director told him to get him a glass of water and did paperwork at his huge desk.

That Wednesday, for the first Wednesday in a long time, Sam had a quiet hour without any new pain, and afterward went back to the infirmary where he didn’t have to be afraid of the monsters in the dark.

He didn’t think it would last, but while it did, he curled up, hid his eyes, and slept as deeply as he could.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, guys. The last chapter of Part One.
> 
> As we warned you, we're going on hiatus for a few weeks after this - we need to gear up for Part Two. A lot of it's already written, but we have to fill in some gaps and make sure everything's ready to go.
> 
> If you have a Livejournal account, you should head over to watch our freac_camp community there for miscellaneous extra posts (possibly including timestamps, though those will also be posted under my or Brose's accounts here) we'll post in the interim.
> 
> Enjoy!

Just another Wednesday in a long line of Wednesdays. Sam entered the Director’s office and knelt against the wall as he always did. He still felt numb, hollow, stiff from his near-death, but he could feel it wearing off and that threatened to terrify him more than anything else. The Director could have him beaten—he had done that last week, because Sam had hesitated too long before responding to one of the Senator’s commands during his bimonthly blowjob, but he had barely felt it—but nothing could hurt more than the return to feeling.

Still, some of his survival skills were returning, and he supposed he should be grateful, even if he wasn’t—though if the Director asked, he would lie, he would beg and plead and thank because that was what he did, that was his response now, if the Director would give him that opportunity—and he didn’t even need to look at the Director. Just his hands were enough, and Sam wasn’t even conscious anymore of watching his hands. It was like each long finger was buried deep into his brain, locked into his spine where all the nerve impulses radiated out, and any twitch of his finger, any snap of his wrist could make Sam act without conscious thought.  _Come here, pick it up, stop, sit, kneel, crawl_ , and Sam would find himself moving, on his hands and knees, quickly, without needing to think about it anymore.

Sam would have felt relief if he had been feeling anything at all. Responses so ingrained as to be instinct were responses that wouldn’t earn him a beating, responses that would keep him alive without requiring him to feel, think, or process.

Victor stood stiffly on one side of the door. True to the Director’s word, Crusher had never been a part of their sessions again, though other guards had learned just as quickly what the Director liked, what he wanted, what his little nods and hand gestures meant. Today, the Director sat at his desk signing his scrawling but distinctive signature over a pile of pale red forms. He used a dark fountain pen that gave his J’s a particular swooping look and bled through the sheets onto the plain white paper he always kept beneath them.

Sam recognized the color of the papers. He had been assigned, three or four times, to sort piles of old ASC paperwork, and execution permission requests were always that exact shade. He had been grateful, at the time, not to come across his or Kayla’s numbers on the papers. Now, he wondered dully who was going to die in the next few days and if they had been in Special Research for very long already, or if part of what the forms authorized was their induction there.

The Director let Sam sit there for a while, the scratch of his pen the only sound in the office, and then he glanced up and made a tiny scooping, jerky motion with his left hand.  _Stand and come here._

Sam stood and walked forward. He stopped when the Director’s hand told him to stop.

The small table that usually held the Director’s interrogation tools stood in the middle of the room; a small black handgun rested on top of the pristine white sheet. Sam carefully didn’t look at it, didn’t let his hands stray.

The Director signed the last sheet with a particular flourish and then dotted an imaginary i with enough force to punch a hole in the paper. Sam flinched, slightly—he had scrubbed the Director’s desk once, trying to get those little black dots worn out of the hardwood—but otherwise gave no sign.

“Good,” the Director said. “That’s done.” He turned the full force of his grey eyes on Sam, and Sam felt a dull throb of terror deep inside him, below the hollow, below the numb. So deep he couldn’t quite feel it, but the memory of it was there nonetheless. The Director’s eyes flickered to the gun and then back to Sam’s face. “Pick it up,” he said.

Eyes locked on the clawed feet of the Director’s desk, Sam picked up the gun. His hands were shaking slightly. He willed them to stop.

“Put it to your head and pull the trigger.”

It was an awkward angle, and Sam couldn’t manage it as smoothly as he should have. The fumbling gave him time, too much fucking time, and thoughts tumbled through his head like rain rushing down the slanted aluminum roofs of the barracks, like broken bodies thrown out of a black van.

Was this really it, the moment of death, the moment of release? Should he angle the blast so that brain matter moved more toward the less expensive—and easier to clean—area around the conference table, or be sure to move it so that Victor wouldn’t catch any of the gore What would Kayla do if he wasn’t there? Would it hurt? Would he still be numb in hell? Oh God, would the Director really make it this easy? Would Dean know that he was dead? Would he care? Had he asked that Sam be put down, because he couldn’t come to get him ever ever ever?

 _Did the Director wait until he signed my execution permission form to give the order?_  was Sam’s last thought before he pulled the trigger.

The empty click of the gun was very loud in the room, and Sam felt the vibration of the hammer through his skull. He clenched his eyes shut—they had been open, fixed on the Director’s desk, locked onto the Director’s hands—and fought to keep any other reactions off his face, any other sounds from coming out of his mouth.

Of course the Director would never make it that fucking easy. Would have done it in the yard, or in his interrogation room, not in his office. Sam had been a stupid, stupid freak to even guess, to wonder, to hope. 

He should have known better from the start than to wish the gun was or wasn’t loaded. That was the lesson.

He forced his eyes open again, homing in instantly on the Director’s hand. He kept the cold barrel of the gun pressed against his temple and hoped his expression gave away nothing of what he had been feeling, even though the Director knew it all.

“Clean it. Put it back. Get out,” the Director said.

Sam quickly and silently used the plain white sheet to rub down the gun— _get the filthy monster fingerprints off the shiny black_ —placed it back in the middle of the table, turned and left. He didn’t stop or change his pace as he walked out of Administration, across the yard, into the showers. He made his movements there as methodical, impersonal, and obedient as they had been cleaning the gun. Just another piece of the Director’s property.

~*~

The general came into Jonah Campbell’s office without knocking. The Director glanced up, smiled, and put aside the report he had been reading.

“What did you think?” he asked.

The general glanced at the camera in the corner and back. “I’m impressed.”

The Director was not a man who would preen, but his smile deepened, and he gestured graciously at the chair in front of his desk. “I assume you’re impressed by the subject’s response and not by the FREACS security system.”

“While the latter is certainly impressive—I am newly resolved to be on my best behavior when inside the facility, given that I’m sure you have dirt on half the idiots who visit you with their heads up their asses, and I have no intention of being one of them—you are correct.” The general took the chair and leaned back in it. “You’ve certainly been talking about your pet project for long enough, but I never quite believed you until that demonstration came up on the screens. That freak...he didn’t even  _think_ about using that gun on you, and for all he knew it was loaded. He didn’t even consider that a possibility.”

“Didn’t even consider not obeying my instructions,” the Director agreed, just a hint of self-satisfaction in his voice.

“Exactly. You talk a good game, but now...I’m a believer.”

The Director smiled. “The program funding will go through, then?”

The general waved a hand. “Yes, absolutely. You have Senator King’s support, and most of Homeland Security will agree with me. You’ll get your money.”

“And you, general, will get trained monsters, if I have anything else to say about it.”

~*~

Sam sat in the library, hunched over the massive spellbook, occasionally checking that the camera in the corner was still in the same position and that the notes in his folder were still clearly written, in spite of how his hand had been cramping up the entire day. He took a brief breather, closing his eyes and massaging his right hand, ignoring how the healing flesh screamed at him in favor of keeping the tendons stretched and loose. He was off computers for the week since he had failed to report a possible demon sighting. The Director didn't want him back on the electronics until his hands healed enough to be decently fast on the keyboard.

 _"Why did you not report the weather changes?" the dry voice asked him once he had gotten the involuntary whimpering under control._

 _Sam gasped against the thin cords that bound him to the chair, his hands palm up on the table, and kept his eyes fixed just over the Director's shoulder. "There wasn't enough data to conclusively prove any kind of supernatural activity. It was a micro-irregularity and had not been confirmed with non-weather data, or even confirmed as something other than a mechanical malfunction."_

 _"You don’t have the qualification to make that call," the Director said calmly. He nodded at the guard, a new one—Victor was on vacation, and Karl had barracks duty—who pressed the electric prod into his shoulder again._

 _After he stopped shaking, the Director came over and laid a thin switch over his wrist. "88UI6703, you have no right, no ability, to accurately judge what is and is not important. You find a solid sign like that, you report it. I don't care if it is supported. I think you honestly though that you were doing what you had been told, but you didn't. The next time you allow a sign like this to go unreported, I will assume you are protecting the enemy and your punishments will reflect that fact. Do you understand?"_

 _Sam dragged in a ragged breath. "Yes, sir. It was an accident, sir. I will report everything, sir."_

 _"Good." The Director handed the switch off to the guard. "I'm pleased that you understand your failings. Because this was a simple result of your stupidity, your punishment will be light." He nodded at the guard. "Beat his hands like I told you. Make sure the damage isn't permanent. And muzzle him first."_

 _After the ball was in his mouth, Sam bit down hard and did his best not to give the guard the satisfaction of his whimpers._

No, Sam wouldn't be on a computer for a few days, but that didn't mean he couldn't continue to research; he was just back to the books. 

He liked the smell of the library, the plastic coatings and the books, sinking into him. Even being forced to memorize the information in pile after pile of books—and the beatings he earned when he was too slow at learning what the Director demanded—couldn't completely whip that out of him. He hid it better now. He did his best to keep that same blank look on his face whether the Director said he was serving him dinner, or Victor was giving him a choice, or they said that he was in the library again. He thought that it worked. The beatings had become fewer since he stopped...wanting this place, this feel of the pages turning under his hands, the words coming into him. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t given it up completely, hadn’t truly let it go—like he had long ago stopped hoping that the Wednesdays would stop, or that his stomach would ever feel full—unless it was because this was the one place, the one time, that he could pretend that Dean would come back, that the books would keep him safe, that it was just his life like it had been before the Director.

A dangerous illusion, but one that kept him going. Though he wasn’t even sure why he wanted to keep going.

The other reason he liked the library, at least now, was that he was often alone. Not that that would keep him safe if he were doing anything wrong, but the little camera in the corner was not close enough to catch him closing his eyes, rubbing his hands, or taking the time to think of nothing at all. As long as he actually got the work done, no one caught him at it.

When the door opened, he didn't flinch right away.  _I'm just rubbing my hand as I read_ , he thought, very hard, hoping to put that entire thought into his body language and his face.  _Not doing anything you can hurt me for._

It was Pete.

"Freak, you're going!" He didn’t even come all the way into the room, just stood at the door and casually hit his billy club against his thigh. "The Director says you put everything away, you're not coming back."

Sam's jaw clenched. That could mean anything from  _He doesn't need what you were researching_  to  _You're not coming back to the library for the next three months_. Or worse.

But he didn't say any of that, didn't let it show on his face. He just closed his books and put them carefully, methodically on the shelves, making sure that he would remember the pages and the notes in case the Director—or any real, he was supposed to respond to any real in the same way, the Director had said—asked. He closed his notebook and put it on the shelf with the rest of the research documents.

The first inkling Sam got that his luck had run out was when Pete took a heavy lead line from his belt and snapped one end onto Sam's collar.

He froze completely, too shocked and horrified not to let it show.

The guard grinned at him. "I told you, freak, you're  _going_ ," and he jerked the stick in his hand down hard, sending Sam crashing to the floor.

He caught himself, but what was the point, what was the purpose of keeping himself together when his luck had run out so absolutely? Eleven years of surviving, eleven years of keeping it all together, clawing onto nebulous hopes, and there the result was, broken off, hopeless.

 _You're going._

Only one place Sam could possibly be going. Special Research, where witches went for their executions, where the monsters went that couldn't stop themselves from ripping other monsters apart. The place freaks went so that the hunters could "study" them until they left in the salted smoke of the great incinerators.

Following the guard down the familiar Administration hallways, Sam couldn't stop himself from shaking. What did it matter? What the fuck did it matter anymore? He could feel everything shutting down, trying to brace for...everything. He’d wished for death so much in the last six months, but since the Director had had him put the gun to his own head, he’d understood that was something too good for him to want or have any control over.

The guard pulled him out of Administration, but instead of turning deeper into FREACS, deep into the worst parts of hell, they turned the other direction, toward Reception. When Sam stumbled, sheer terror making him unsteady, the guard reached over and pulled him up by the collar. Sam welcomed the more normal, usual distraction of pain. He had been here before. He had walked this way to interrogations and those brief, lightning-flash moments with Dean.

When they arrived at Reception, Pete stopped at the resource room, ducked in for a second, and came out with a pile of clothes that he shoved into Sam's arms. Without waiting for any kind of reaction, he set off, towing Sam deeper into the dark corridors—there were hallways in Reception for the important visitors, the ones through which senators and civilians walked, and scratched, florescent-flickering ones like this for freaks and hunters—than he had ever been, than he could ever remember being.  _Paperwork_ , Sam thought.  _Monster comes in, monster goes out, you have to have the right forms with the right numbers._

At the last door in the hallway, a heavy metal one with sigils keeping demons from crossing the threshold, the guard turned to Sam. “Clothes off."

Sam couldn't tell what he wanted, fast obedience or a show—Pete could go either way, depending on the day and his mood—so he compromised by going fast, but facing him.

When he was naked and shivering under the fluorescents, old grey clothes neatly folded in one pile, the clothes Pete had given him in another, the guard strung the lead line through a bolt and pointed his club at the second pile.

"Put on those," he said.

Silently, Sam crouched for the new clothes. The boxers and jeans—like a hunter wore, like a _fucking hunter_ wore, just the thought made his hands shake—were just like his usual pants, until he got to the flaps and buttons and zippers. He'd opened enough flies that he knew the theory, but doing it to himself was a very different thing, made his hands stumble on themselves. The shirt almost gave him a panic attack, too, when he realized there was no way it was coming over his head with the leash fastened to the wall—and he had seen a monster lose a hand trying to free himself from the leash. But then he realized that the shirt had buttons. They took a long time to open and then meticulously hook together again, but the guard showed no sign that he was going to start hitting him with the club he tapped against his thigh.

When Sam was dressed, head down, hands still, Pete turned to the door with a grunt and pushed a string of numbers into the key box. He waited a few minutes, muttered something into the intercom, and then the light above the huge iron door turned green. Sam only vaguely listened. He could probably remember both the conversation and the number sequence if he had to—lately anything he saw went straight to long-term memory, a Director-induced survival skill—but at the moment he could care less about what Pete had done.

He didn't know what sick game they were playing with the clothes. Maybe they were dressing him up as a hunter, preparing to beat him to death while he was pretending to be a real person. That would at least be better than being "studied."

Rebecca had told him never to fear death but to look forward to it as something that would bring him to an infinitely better place, where none of the guards would be able to touch him, but Sam had stopped believing that sometime while the Crusher had been branding him in response to the Director’s cool voice. It was too much to hope for, and he had learned well her other lesson, that it was better not to believe in anything that sounded good. Death sounded too nice. He didn't really expect that moment of peace and darkness. Much more likely was the hell of Special Research sliding seamlessly into the hell after life. He doubted there could be much difference.

But when Pete unclipped the line from the wall and jerked Sam through the open doors, he felt everything he had expected, everything he had assumed about this moment, shattering away to a vast and uncertain lightness.

Because standing nervously in the bare white room beyond the door, face in profile, hands in his jean pockets, was  _Dean_.

And Sam could not ever imagine death, or hell, or true pain if Dean were there.

~*~

When the guard came in with Sam trailing him on the leash, Dean's jaw almost dropped in shock.

It hadn't occurred to him that he had never seen Sam in anything but the gray shirt and pants provided by the facility. In jeans and one of Dean's button-up shirts, Dean saw him as a new person, one with the look of a long-term survivor that didn't have the resources to survive much longer, a half-grown boy with not enough meat on his bones. The shirt sleeves—one of Dean's older ones, from before he hit his last growth spurt—were a little too short, but the rest of the shirt was baggy, several sizes too big for Sam's skin-on-bones frame.

He'd grown again, too, during those damn months Dean had been away, though Dean doubted that he'd gained so much as half a pound of weight. They would have been eye to eye if Sam had been standing up straight. Or if he had been willing to take his eyes off the floor. 

"Brought him to you, Winchester," the guard called as he shoved the door closed. He carried Sam's leash like it was just another weapon, like the club he held in the same hand. "Dressed up and pretty like you wanted. Madison get that paperwork to you yet?"

"Not yet," Dean said.

"Can't leave until you get that," the guard said. Then he grinned. "And always better to inspect the merchandise before you sign the contract. 'Specially secondhand goods." He slapped Sam on the shoulder, and Sam winced, slightly, from the touch.

Dean swallowed, hard, his hands clenched. He wanted to get a look at Sam, a good look. He looked rail thin, as always, and pale, like he hadn't been getting as much sun as he used to, and there was something else about him, something fragile and nervous that Dean hadn't seen the last time he saw him, six fucking months ago. Dean wanted to know, needed to put his finger on the distance, but first he needed this asshole to go away. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to get Sam to look at him, wouldn't be able to see if Sam could forgive him for taking so goddamned long, for not even being able to tell him where he had gone. He was getting Sam out, that wasn't a question, but whether or not he would come with him, would stay...that was up to Sam.

"Can you leave us?" Dean asked. "Maybe check on where the forms are?"

The guy's grin faded, but only slightly. "Yeah. Sure. Hey!" He extended the leash. "You want this, or should I check it on the wall?"

Dean felt his jaw jump, and the guard must have seen some of the rage in his face because he backed up to the door, ran the leash through the bolt there, and went through another set of doors to where the Reception desk waited behind the bulletproof glass. Sam's head followed the lead, his body leaning a little bit back toward the door, but he didn't move his feet, didn't move in any way that wasn't necessary.

Dean waited until the guard was really gone before he moved forward. Sam cringed away from his hands, a slight movement that Dean might not have noticed if he weren't looking, but he didn't care how Sam felt about him right now. He caught his face between his palms and pushed Sam back with the same movement, moving him closer to the door so that the leash wasn't twisting his head around.

"Sam, you okay?"  _You okay?_  Seriously, that was the best he could do when he had just  _left him?_  But Dean had nothing better. 

Sam stared at him, some kind of shock in his face, and then almost smiled. It was a slight flicker in his mouth, in his eyes, gone in an instant, but even that softening notched Dean's tension down a mile. But after that slight expression, he couldn't keep his eyes on Dean's and they fell to about the level of his shoulders. "Dean," he said.

Dean figured that was about the best he was going to get. "Let's get this fucking rope off you, Sam," he said, and reached up under Sam's chin for where the line connected to the collar.

Sam took a deep, shaky breath, but tipped his head up, eyes closed, while Dean's hands fumbled with the clips. When he got the head of the leash off Sam's collar, Dean threw the fucking thing as hard as he could against the wall.

When Sam jumped, Dean kept his hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. "You never have to wear one of those fucking things again, Sam. I promise."

Sam nodded, tightly, and then smoothly stepped away from him, out from under his hand, when the door opened and the original guard, Madison, and an older man with his hair fading to gray at his temples and a small smile just barely reaching his eyes, entered.

~*~

Sam didn't know the woman—pretty, well fed, dressed in a business jacket and skirt, carrying a pile of papers—but with the Director  _and Dean_ in the same room, he was having a hard time breathing. It had been easy to forget, if just for a second, what he was and what he could expect when Dean was touching him, sliding his hand beneath Sam's neck, resting his hand on his shoulder—not to restrain him but, as far as Sam could tell, for the contact alone. He had been able to forget the next logical step after a hand on his shoulder—the fist in his gut, the order to go to his knees—and let the small voice in his head say Dean’s name over and over again, the shock, the  _joy_ so overwhelming it almost hurt.

 _Oh my God, you’re seeing Dean again_. Even one more time was more than he had allowed himself to hope for in at least four months.

But now, impossible, unthinkable, to forget anything with the Director in the room.

Dean looked at the strangers, tension in the line of his neck, but not the kind of stark panic that Sam was feeling. Dean looked ready for a fight, a fight he knew he would win. It was the same brash confidence that had characterized him from the first day they met, the first time that Dean had smiled at him and made him feel almost like a real person.

The secretary hung back, eyeing Sam warily, but the Director strode forward and it was everything Sam could do not to run, not to call attention to himself. He had already pulled away from Dean—the Director hurt everything he loved, Sam couldn't risk Dean being too close to him—but it was hard not to run, to drop to the floor like a good dog, or to fumble the leash back around his neck to prove that he hadn't meant to pretend to be something he wasn't.

To Sam's relief, the Director ignored him completely. To his tight-throated horror, the Director reached out a hand to Dean, smiling, and Dean took it automatically, still tense, but not even realizing what it was he was touching, realizing how close he was to pain, death and a calm, calm voice directing the whip.

"Dean Winchester," he said, pumping Dean's hand and never dropping the smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I've heard good things about you, all the way around. Mary's son, yes?" When Dean stiffened slightly, the Director's face fell into the clear lines of sympathy, mouth down, eyes sad. "I'm sorry, that was callous of me. Jonah Campbell, Director of FREACS and ASC. May I call you Dean?"

Dean nodded. "Yes, Mr. Campbell."

The Director laughed, and Sam shivered. "Please, call me Jonah. Though most around here just call me Director. It seems I gave up first names when I stepped into Uncle Samuel's shoes." The Director's smile invited Dean into the joke, shared with him the pressures of responsibility. "Some days I wish I could just get back out there where the worst I had to worry about were a mated pair of wendigos and no backup. Now I have to deal with politicians and law enforcement."

The more the Director talked in that bright, conversational tone he reserved for reals he wanted something from, the more Sam had to fight the urge to flinch or whimper, but the words seemed to loosen something in Dean, made a line of tension ease in his shoulders. "Cops," Dean snorted.

Sam wanted to scream at Dean to run, to let go, not to believe a single word said in that cold, smooth voice, but he was afraid to break the illusion the Director was creating. He didn’t give a damn what happened to him, but what if Dean did something that made the Director see him as a threat? Dean was strong and had fought monsters stronger than Sam would ever be, but there was no way that he could defeat the Director. Sam lowered his head and fought to give no sign that he  _knew_ the false cheer and charm was a lie.

"Indeed." The Director changed conversational directions smoothly, his face tightening a little. Sam recognized the tone as one that asked questions, that looked for the  _right_ answer. Any other answer ended in pain. "You can imagine, I don't have much time anymore for hands-on work, but when I heard you were requesting a permanent removal of one of our inmates, I showed a special interest. I assure you, from our end, there should be no problems with your new charge, but if there are, know that we can always take him back or give you support. At any time, if the monster proves to be unmanageable, we will take him back. Just because you are signing for permanent responsibility for his actions doesn't mean that we aren't here for you, Dean."

Sam didn't dare look up to see Dean's reaction, and his voice betrayed nothing. He could have been anything from angry at the suggestion to honestly grateful. "I appreciate the thought, Jonah."

"Good." The Director sounded less than pleased, but he waved the woman forward. "Then I'll leave the rest of the details to Madison, who is so much better keeping the forms together than I. Without her and the rest of the administrative assistants, I think this organization would combust faster than a salted ghost. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to contact me through anyone here or at HQ. Good luck."

With that the Director smiled at Dean, squeezing his hand again for one last friendly shake, and then turned to go back through the door.

Only in that second did Sam realize that Dean wasn’t just there for a visit, but that Dean was taking him away.

It was true, it was absolutely true. The Director had talked to Dean, the Director was walking away, and Sam was still just standing there beside Dean, not leashed, not being dragged back through the doors to Special Research. The Director hadn’t even said a thing about Sam, not making it clear to Dean just how much of a waste of time he was, how much of a disobedient, useless dog. Dean was signing papers. Dean was taking him away. _It was real, all real, not a bad dream, not a daydream, and Dean was taking Sam away._

Sam closed his eyes, dizzy and breathless and so so afraid he was showing everything he felt, everything he had never really expected to feel. Only as a side note did he notice the Director pulling Pete’s shoulder over, whispering a few words, before he left. Only vaguely did he see the frightened glances the woman kept shooting him as she handed Dean page after page to sign. Every time she took the signed document and settled it back in the folder, Sam felt lighter and lighter. It was as though he could feel Dean taking him, lifting him up, creating for Sam—for the first time—a future that did not lead to another anonymous blowjob, another beating, and end on a rack in Special Research. Sam felt drunk and light, imagining days upon days with Dean, every day being with Dean, every day being a good day where there was only one person who could hurt him—Dean never had, but he could and Sam wouldn't care—only one person he had to please, and being willing, no,  _happy_ , to give that person any fucking thing he wanted.

Sam kept from passing out only by taking a deep breath and reminding himself that this wouldn't be forever. He was, basically, worthless—he knew that, it had been made clear—with few assets or abilities that would hold the interest of a man like Dean. But even a year, a month, a week,  _any moment_ spent with Dean would be a time he could hold onto for the rest of his life. It was even easy to believe in death, in peace and contentment, when heaven had come for him.

Dean and the secretary moved to one of the tables to finish the paperwork, but Sam stayed where he was, watching Dean from under his hair, overwhelmed by the idea that Dean’s promise was coming true, that Dean had come back. He didn't even notice Pete coming up next to him until he grabbed Sam's collar and pulled Sam’s ear down to his mouth.

"Don't fool yourself Winchester's gonna make you a pampered pet," he whispered. "He's a hunter, and he'll treat you exactly like you deserve—which means pimping you out to his dogs. And when you stop being a good little bitch you'll end up right back here."

Sam didn't even flinch. He knew that Pete was just trying to rattle him, and it wasn't going to work. He knew it wasn't forever, he knew he wasn't good enough for Dean to keep, but he wasn't going to be thrown off by a threat that wasn't even true. Unless something had radically changed in the last six months, he knew that Dean didn’t even own dogs.

Finally, the last paper was signed, and the woman put on the last seal and gave Dean a tense, hopeful smile. "That's it, Mr—Dean."

"We free to go now?" Dean asked, glancing back at Sam.

She nodded, marking something down on the edge of one form.

Dean smiled at her. "Good. Come on, Sam."

Sam hurried to Dean’s side, slowed enough so he wouldn't run into him, and they kept a steady pace through the last few corridors.

Leaving Freak Camp, taking those last few steps outside the facility, were so unreal that Sam kept having trouble putting one foot in front of the other as he followed a few careful feet behind Dean. When they left the last door and passed through the barbed wire gates and the wary guards with machine guns, Sam had to fight to keep his eyes down. The sky seemed more blue, the dry desert air fresher, even though he knew it was the same air, the same sky, that he had had his entire life. And yet it was wholly new.

He would have known the Impala anywhere, from Dean's loving descriptions, but the sleek black car looked more dangerous, more alive when he could see the real thing gleaming in the sunlight.

He saw Dean's smile out of the corner of his eye. He liked Sam's reaction. That meant Sam was safe showing that he was happy. Just the concept of it being  _safe_ to be happy felt so fucking good. "I'm really glad you get to see her at last," Dean whispered as they walked. "Description does not do her justice."

And then they were past the last gate, past the last guard. When they stopped next to the Impala, Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Being able to show happiness was one thing, but this feeling, this rush...he was still close to passing out, and Dean hadn’t done a fucking thing to him but smile.

Dean was leaning against the Impala, arms crossed, grinning at him, when he opened his eyes again. "Well, Sam," he said. "I did it. I got you out. Sorry it took so long."

"It's okay," Sam managed to get out past the lump in his throat, the lightness in his body. "You came back."

He loved to see Dean smile. He couldn't believe that he was here, standing beside Dean's car, staring at Dean without fear because the guards were back behind the razor wire and he was all Dean's now.

Dean couldn't seem to stop smiling either. Then his eyes flickered down, and he frowned and pushed himself up from the car. "Hey, we should hit the road, but before we put this shithole in our rearview mirror, there's something we have to take care of."

He went to the trunk and withdrew a pair of heavy-duty wirecutters, as long as his own forearm. Sam's brain immediately shut down as it braced him for pain. Not a new reaction or one he could help—it was the same automatic response he had when he saw the electric prod or the Director handling a whip. He was about to lose—a finger? Maybe. Probably not his nose, Dean wouldn't want him to look any more of a freak. He briefly considered his genitals—he'd been told often enough he didn't need them to be useful, in every way, to a hunter—but everything he knew about Dean told him he wouldn't cut something off Sam just because it wasn't useful to him, just because it would hurt. He wasn't a sadist. 

Probably just an ear, then. That was likely. Even assuming that Dean cut into the ear canal and damaged something internal instead of just taking off the outer skin, he'd still be able to hear orders fine with only one. Even better, this might mean Dean wanted him for more than just a couple weeks' hard ride, wanted to mark Sam as his. And  _that_ was more than okay. If he was Dean's, Dean was much more likely to salt and burn him somewhere when he got tired of him than to let an old possession get passed around FREACS.

Sam could deal with losing any body parts right now, if it was something Dean was doing to claim him as his own. And even if he was too hopeful, if Dean had no problem dumping him back at Freak Camp after he'd had his use of him, at least it would be a reminder that he had once been Dean's.

Sam's whole automatic reaction had taken less than two seconds. By the time Dean walked around the Impala to where he stood, Sam's heartrate was back down and he watched Dean and the wirecutters almost hopefully, trying not to let his daydreams fly away with him.

"Tilt your head up," Dean said. "I want to get a good angle so I don't hurt you."

The last sentence didn’t make any fucking sense, and it almost shattered the edge of Sam’s happy calm, but he obediently closed his eyes and tilted his head up, hoping Dean hadn’t noticed how the blood beat harder in his jugular.

The slide of the wirecutters’ cold metal against his throat and the sharp  _snap_ next to his ear made his jaw clench. The  _lack_ of pain almost made him panic because _oh God what happened that I can’t even feel it?_

And then something hit the ground. Something that sounded too heavy to be an ear.

Sam opened his eyes and Dean was smiling at him, the smile that always made his heart rate go up in a way that had nothing to do with pain or fear. Dean shoved the wirecutters in a belt loop and reached up, making Sam flinch slightly, and rested a hand against his neck. His bare, pale throat.

Sam looked down, Dean’s hand warm and gentle against the naked skin of his neck, and saw the collar in the dirt by his feet. Slowly, hardly believing that he wouldn't touch blood and bone, he reached for his neck on the side opposite where Dean's hand rested, brushing his own fingers over the bare skin.

He looked up, so filled with emotions he couldn't even name—was this shock, terror, wonder, amazement?—that he stared straight into Dean's eyes, incapable of hiding himself, of not looking and looking his fill. He couldn't read Dean's face, but what Dean saw in Sam’s expression made his eyes flicker to something that Sam couldn’t put a name to, that made him nervous without being afraid. Then Dean raised his other hand over Sam's and pulled him close.

Dean's lips met his, warm and soft against Sam's mouth—and Sam felt the point of contact through his jaw, spreading through his chest and pooling hot and overwhelming somewhere in the area of his stomach. Dean was so close that when he took a breath Sam breathed with him, and in that sensation—almost like electricity running through his body but absolutely without pain—Sam felt warm, protected, safe, as he had never imagined he could be. Dean's hands held his face gently, anchoring him there with him, and Sam could think of nothing else that there would be in heaven.

It ended. Of course it ended, and left Sam shaky but smiling, not afraid to smile. Dean smiled back, and Sam couldn't stop looking at his mouth, hoping heaven would come again. For maybe the first time in his life he was not afraid to tremble under Dean's hands and have him know that it was not fear or pain, but a wanting so intense that Sam had to bite his lip to stop himself from asking for more.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean said, sliding around him and opening the passenger door of the Impala. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

Sam got in and couldn't keep a silly grin off his face. And he didn't care. He ran both hands down the leather seats while Dean walked around to the driver's side, savoring the smell of Dean's car, the feel of Dean's life beneath his hands, the knowledge that Dean had come back for him, had taken him away from hell. He had really truly kept his promise.

No matter how long it lasted, no matter what happened to him after this moment, Sam didn't think anyone could take that joy, that peace, away from him.


End file.
